Dr. Metzger's model of economics of starting a city on Mars

[JohnFornaro]

For this model, I used actual data from the US Census bureau...

This seems to be a faulty assumption.

At least acknowledge that to make it work as a model, Mars needs to import as much as the US does in quantity, at Mars-import cost.

edit: ah, having now seen the presentation, the model is: if we ignore the setup costs (which is Elon's 100 billion - 1 trillion dollars), the cost to transport the infrastructure that works on Earth (but would not on Mars at that price due to environment and supply chain dependencies) and handwave the part that explains how imports would evolve over time, and transport that at an admittedly low estimate of less than 1/3 of the current best price to LEO, and ignore that Mars would actually be paying for transporting exports (by having to compete with Earth prices to sell their stuff), that all amounts to a much smaller amount than the setup costs themselves. Which I assume he forgets that this amount is either part of or in addition to the setup costs.

So yeah, not really sure what kind of information we can get from this. ...
[/quote]

Bingo.

I had started a list along the lines of what you present.  Thanks for beating me to it!

One minor thing you slightly overlooked was Metzger's comment about reducing the number of parts by several orders of magnitude.  This reduction is mentioned in his list, as if it were of equal import.  It is not, since importation from Earth will be far cheaper for the first several synods than manufacturing "bolts", say, on Mars.

In a different forum, I contested Metzger's unsubstantiated assertion that: "Making air etc. is negligible cost compared to iPhones and everything else so is easily absorbed."  He responded by saying that he was "working" on providing that costing.

[JohnFornaro]

What does SBSP have to do with an economic model for Mars?

Note that he didn't mention nuclear power.  Electricity will have to come from somewhere.

[lamontagne]

Is the actual model available, or just the presentation?

[Genial Precis]

If he's written anything other than those tweets about the model, it doesn't show up on Google Scholar. I would be interested in reading about it.

[su27k]

I believe Dr. Metzger is writing a paper, but it's not finished.

As for the model, I think some of the summary above is incorrect:
1. Export is assumed to be massless, modeled after massless export from the US
2. Initial setup cost from Musk is not $100B to $1T, that's Musk's own estimate for the entire endeavor. The initial investment is R&D of hardware and get an initial habitat up and running, the latter Dr. Metzger gave a $10B estimate.

Edit: This tweet clarified things:

https://twitter.com/DrPhiltill/status/1480550237672464393

I think it is actually quite doable to build a city on Mars. It will take about $10B to $100B initial cost (not counting Elon’s expense to develop transportation) then it becomes self-funding after a while. I am working on a model that gave these preliminary results. Publish soon

[JohnFornaro]

I believe Dr. Metzger is writing a paper, but it's not finished.

As for the model, I think some of the summary above is incorrect:
1. Export is assumed to be massless, modeled after massless export from the US
2. Initial setup cost from Musk is not $100B to $1T, that's Musk's own estimate for the entire endeavor. The initial investment is R&D of hardware and get an initial habitat up and running, the latter Dr. Metzger gave a $10B estimate.

$10B to get an initial hab "up and running"?  This is roughly the cost of SLS.  Metzger is overconfident, and under researched in the cost of this project.  Again, I'm not against the idea at all.  I'm for accurate costing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System

[Lar]

I believe Dr. Metzger is writing a paper, but it's not finished.

As for the model, I think some of the summary above is incorrect:
1. Export is assumed to be massless, modeled after massless export from the US
2. Initial setup cost from Musk is not $100B to $1T, that's Musk's own estimate for the entire endeavor. The initial investment is R&D of hardware and get an initial habitat up and running, the latter Dr. Metzger gave a $10B estimate.

$10B to get an initial hab "up and running"?  This is roughly the cost of SLS.  Metzger is overconfident, and under researched in the cost of this project.  Again, I'm not against the idea at all.  I'm for accurate costing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System

With mature transport 10 B is not totally unreasonable as an initial investment. Don't do it ISS style with a standing army groundside.

[high road]

What does SBSP have to do with an economic model for Mars?

Note that he didn't mention nuclear power.  Electricity will have to come from somewhere.

Yeah, but it wasn't related. it's two separate subjects, both of which he built an economic model for.

[JohnFornaro]

What does SBSP have to do with an economic model for Mars?

Note that he didn't mention nuclear power.  Electricity will have to come from somewhere.

Yeah, but it wasn't related. it's two separate subjects, both of which he built an economic model for.

Well, I think it's perfectly reasonable to include in one's model of the economic costs of a martian base, to include a model for how the power would supply that base.  Define "separate subjects".

[JohnFornaro]

I believe Dr. Metzger is writing a paper, but it's not finished.

As for the model, I think some of the summary above is incorrect:
1. Export is assumed to be massless, modeled after massless export from the US
2. Initial setup cost from Musk is not $100B to $1T, that's Musk's own estimate for the entire endeavor. The initial investment is R&D of hardware and get an initial habitat up and running, the latter Dr. Metzger gave a $10B estimate.

$10B to get an initial hab "up and running"?  This is roughly the cost of SLS.  Metzger is overconfident, and under researched in the cost of this project.  Again, I'm not against the idea at all.  I'm for accurate costing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System

With mature transport 10 B is not totally unreasonable as an initial investment. Don't do it ISS style with a standing army groundside.

The *estimate* did not include "mature" transport.  The *estimate* assumes from scratch.  I'm not sure of your definitions.

[high road]

What does SBSP have to do with an economic model for Mars?

Note that he didn't mention nuclear power.  Electricity will have to come from somewhere.

Yeah, but it wasn't related. it's two separate subjects, both of which he built an economic model for.

Well, I think it's perfectly reasonable to include in one's model of the economic costs of a martian base, to include a model for how the power would supply that base.  Define "separate subjects".

He doesn't mention SBSP at all in the Mars bit. He explains an economic model for SBSP, without refering to Mars, and then an economic model to estimate Mars resupply costs without mentioning SBSP.

[JohnFornaro]

He doesn't mention SBSP at all in the Mars bit. He explains an economic model for SBSP, without refering to Mars, and then an economic model to estimate Mars resupply costs without mentioning SBSP.

Where does the electricity come from in the "economic model"?

[lamontagne]

He doesn't mention SBSP at all in the Mars bit. He explains an economic model for SBSP, without refering to Mars, and then an economic model to estimate Mars resupply costs without mentioning SBSP.

Where does the electricity come from in the "economic model"?

Doesn't really matter as long as a cost for the infrastructure and production costs are included in the model.  Could be nuclear, could be solar and wind with storage, could be orbital solar or could be geothermal.  A significant part of the local economy will be producing the energy infrastructure.
I just hope the energy to produce the food and the greenhouses/grow rooms/biological reactors is included in the model or else it will be really off.  On Earth we don't count solar input in most models (as far as I know) as it is a given and common to all, but on Mars it's a big deal.  A bigger deal than making air, IMHO.

[JohnFornaro]

[Metzger] doesn't mention SBSP at all in the Mars bit. He explains an economic model for SBSP, without refering to Mars, and then an economic model to estimate Mars resupply costs without mentioning SBSP.

Where does the electricity come from in the "economic model"?

Doesn't really matter as long as a cost for the infrastructure and production costs are included in the model.  Could be nuclear, could be solar and wind with storage, could be orbital solar or could be geothermal.  A significant part of the local economy will be producing the energy infrastructure.
I just hope the energy to produce the food and the greenhouses/grow rooms/biological reactors is included in the model or else it will be really off.  On Earth we don't count solar input in most models (as far as I know) as it is a given and common to all, but on Mars it's a big deal.  A bigger deal than making air, IMHO.

[Metzger] doesn't mention SBSP at all in the Mars bit.

Maybe you, lamontagne, could explain h-r's argument to me?

[lamontagne]

[Metzger] doesn't mention SBSP at all in the Mars bit. He explains an economic model for SBSP, without refering to Mars, and then an economic model to estimate Mars resupply costs without mentioning SBSP.

Where does the electricity come from in the "economic model"?

Doesn't really matter as long as a cost for the infrastructure and production costs are included in the model.  Could be nuclear, could be solar and wind with storage, could be orbital solar or could be geothermal.  A significant part of the local economy will be producing the energy infrastructure.
I just hope the energy to produce the food and the greenhouses/grow rooms/biological reactors is included in the model or else it will be really off.  On Earth we don't count solar input in most models (as far as I know) as it is a given and common to all, but on Mars it's a big deal.  A bigger deal than making air, IMHO.

[Metzger] doesn't mention SBSP at all in the Mars bit.

Maybe you, lamontagne, could explain h-r's argument to me?

Don't know about High Road's argument.  So I looked at the video.  The point seems to be that space based solar power for Earth would be a good thing, reducing the impact of moving to a fully renewable energy form 25% of the economy (a huge change) to something between 25% and 6% (the present importance of the energy sector).
Developing Mars will create a space based economy, that will be able to supply the construction of SBSP from space (Mars/asteroids/moon) rather than from Earth.
The information on his Mars model is minimal.  I hope I can lay hands on the slides.  It seems to be a model of a mini US, on Mars.  The model would show that if Musk funds the settlement construction entirely out of his pocket for a cost of about ten billion dollars, the martians could live on Mars with a financial cost equal to the one that exists for living in Florida.  I.E a martian would have the same level of debt than a Floridian.  These martians could produce goods and services to build SBSP installations for Earth at lower cost than from Earth, and therefore have a viable export economy, as Earth would pay for SBSP using cheaper space based materials.

Make sense to you?

My question would be about the Martian energy requirements, that should be much higher than the ones on Earth and if his model takes that into account.  Living on Mars should always be much more costly than living on Earth because of the energy costs.  My hope is that he integrates his self replicating production ideas into the martian economy.  This way MArs gets very cheap energy, food costs are reasonable and then Martian do live rather like floridians.

[IRobot]

Any economics model of Mars will have to compare it with asteroid mining or a lunar base.

Mars must not only prove it can have a sustainable economical project, but also that it can compete with asteroid or lunar economical models.

[su27k]

I believe Dr. Metzger is writing a paper, but it's not finished.

As for the model, I think some of the summary above is incorrect:
1. Export is assumed to be massless, modeled after massless export from the US
2. Initial setup cost from Musk is not $100B to $1T, that's Musk's own estimate for the entire endeavor. The initial investment is R&D of hardware and get an initial habitat up and running, the latter Dr. Metzger gave a $10B estimate.

$10B to get an initial hab "up and running"?  This is roughly the cost of SLS.  Metzger is overconfident, and under researched in the cost of this project.  Again, I'm not against the idea at all.  I'm for accurate costing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System

I rewatched the presentation, he said it's $10B to $100B for the initial base.

[su27k]

[Metzger] doesn't mention SBSP at all in the Mars bit. He explains an economic model for SBSP, without refering to Mars, and then an economic model to estimate Mars resupply costs without mentioning SBSP.

Where does the electricity come from in the "economic model"?

Doesn't really matter as long as a cost for the infrastructure and production costs are included in the model.  Could be nuclear, could be solar and wind with storage, could be orbital solar or could be geothermal.  A significant part of the local economy will be producing the energy infrastructure.
I just hope the energy to produce the food and the greenhouses/grow rooms/biological reactors is included in the model or else it will be really off.  On Earth we don't count solar input in most models (as far as I know) as it is a given and common to all, but on Mars it's a big deal.  A bigger deal than making air, IMHO.

[Metzger] doesn't mention SBSP at all in the Mars bit.

Maybe you, lamontagne, could explain h-r's argument to me?

The SBSP stuff and Mars economic model are not directly linked, Dr. Metzger kind of handwaved their connection during the presentation, there's no mentioning of using SBSP for Mars colony at all. I believe the connection between the two topics is the similarity of the models.

The SBSP part of the presentation presented this argument: SBSP's biggest advantage is that it can be built entirely off-world, on the Moon for example. This means we build up the entire industrial base for SBSP on the Moon, starting from mining for raw material, ends with a completed SBSP built entirely from components sourced from industry suppliers on the Moon.

This is good because energy sector of the entire Earth in 2100 is projected to be as large as the entire Earth economy today, if we can move all that to the Moon it would mean we moved the entirety of today's industry to the Moon, which would produce enormous environmental benefit here on Earth. It's basically similar to Bezos' vision, but just for the energy sector.

However to get this benefit would require we bootstrap an entire industrial base on the Moon which can mine raw material from the Moon and manufacture a SBSP without needing anything from Earth, now you see the similarity to Mars colony: Both would require bootstrap an entire industry from zero, except in SBSP's case it's just the energy sector, while for Mars it's everything.

So the model for a fully off-world SBSP industry and a Mars colony is quite similar.

[lamontagne]

My understanding of the presentation is that Mars might be the source of a rapid development of industrial capacity in space. As Musk would be financing most of the initial settlement, it would happen much faster than other models, even faster than self replicating machines on the Moon, one of Metzger's fields of interest and one he championed with the US administration.

The basic product sold to Earth would be energy through Space Based Solar.  Metzger proposes than Martians could build part of the infrastructure for energy production for Earth Space Based Solar at a competitive cost, probably cheaper than from the Moon.  After all Moon development also requires a huge initial capital investment.  He does not go very deep on asteroids direct, but he clearly thinks that's even more expensive and slow.  Mars would benefit from a valuable export, therefore generating the revenue required for development.  Often the Achille's heal of Mars settlement designs.  Seems more convincing that selling Martian rocks or Martian tourism er even Martian real estate.

So this model would be an answer to the thread about the Martian export economy. 

[high road]

He doesn't mention SBSP at all in the Mars bit. He explains an economic model for SBSP, without refering to Mars, and then an economic model to estimate Mars resupply costs without mentioning SBSP.

Where does the electricity come from in the "economic model"?

There is no mention of electricity at all in the Mars economic model. You may see a role for it, but it's not mentioned at all in Metzger's explanation of his economic model. It's all about estimating transport costs, full stop. Every other consideration is handwaved away at best.

We could have a discussion about SBSP and Mars, but dr. Metzger did not connect them in his presentation. Maybe his SBSP model was detailred enough to realize that SBSP would add quite a lot of mass that needs to be launched from/transported to Mars compared to nuclear (and until we have a technological breakthrough in conversion efficiency, conventional solar power), and setting up SBSP production on Mars for use on earth would pretty much nullify the benefits of building them in space, not even counting the extra cost of setting up production 2.5 years away from resupply.