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Make vs. buy for a Martian colony
Make vs. buy (where "buy" has a likely lead time of anywhere
between six months and more than two years) decisions are going to be hard for any Martian colony that has not developed a full industrial base comparable with what we have today on Earth. Even something simple, like an oil-resistant nitrile rubber O-ring gasket, would require a long chain of manufacturing, starting out with Butadiene (which requires something like a steam cracker), Propene and Ammonia for the monomers, plus emulsifiers for the emulsion reaction and large amounts of water which would end up polluted. Also, rubber manufacturing is quite a specialized process. This would only give you the base polymer. In any useful rubber compound, you are likely to find 20 to 30 different chemicals, from fillers (carbon black, silica, plasticizers), a rubber protection system (UV, oxygen, radiation, Ozone, fatigue, ... protection), processing aids (lubricants, tackifiers, dispersion agents, peptizers, oil), vulcanizing agents such as sulfur or peroxides, activators, accelerators, scorch retarders), and probably others I have forgotten. Each of these has their own synthesis route and supply chain. And you will also need specialized catalysts for making many of the materials that will have to go into that simple gasket... All of this for a part that will cost a few cents here and now. So, it is likely that drastic simplification will be needed to build up an industry on Mars, both in material selection (don't try to use the best materials available on Earth for that spacesuit) and in processes (accept inefficiency that would bankrupt any company on Earth today). And don't count on a Mars colony becoming independent from Earth supplies any time soon. What work has been done in what a Martian colony would be able to produce for itself, work that addresses the complexity that I have only given a very small part of? |
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