On Mar/1/2021 at 12:29, JF Mezei wrote :
On 2021-03-01 10:43, Alain Fournier wrote:

I think companies who act now might make big profits. Those who wait
will have a harder time. Elon wants humans on Mars soon. If you want to
help him, I think you can have a good deal.


So you are Acme Inc based in Wisconsin USA and send greenhouses to Mars.
They grow veggies well and the guy tending the greenhouse sells then at
$600 per tomato. Where do colonists get that kind of money? And how
does Acme Inc get profits back to Earth?

Once you have your greenhouse setup on Mars, making tomatoes should not
cost $600 per tomato. I'm not sure which would be more expensive,
growing tomatoes on Mars or in Nunavut (not counting the very expensive
cost of installing the greenhouse on Mars). In Nunavut, the
containerised greenhouses grow plants mostly without human intervention.
They just need to have their water tank filled once in a while. One of
the difficulties in the Nunavut greenhouses is to give the plants some
CO2, that should be easier for the Martian greenhouses.

Note also, that Martian greenhouses would not only provide produce to
the Martian settlers. The greenhouse would make oxygen as a by product,
which the settlers would like to have.

Of course, adapting the greenhouse for Mars and bringing it there will
cost many million dollars. But there is a guy named Elon who wants to go
live on Mars and we can expect that he will soon have the means to
deliver the greenhouse on Mars. And since he has the financial resources
subsidise the adaptation work for the Martian environment of the
greenhouse, those who build the Nunavut containerised greenhouses, if
they join forces with some engineering company, they could probably
strike a deal with Elon.

There is a huge diferrence between a research settlement funded by a
government (whetrher in Antarctic or Mars or ISS) and setting up a
commercial society with commerce, money, economy and "international"
trade with Earth.

Musk has more financial resources than any research settlement in
Antarctica.

Elon has his science fiction stories on twitter, but he likely knows
that Starship going to amrs with humans will be to tend a research
station funded by internatioanl agreement like ISS and not some
commercial endeavour to setup real estate, commerce etc on Mars.

He wants to go live there.


Alain Fournier