Near-future Expansion of Human Presence in Cislunar Space

[LMT]

LCROSS detected high levels of gold in polar craters.

Some counterpoints:

1.  The LCROSS Centaur impactor contained gold foil.

2.  Meteoritic debris has more platinum than gold, but platinum wasn't detected in the vapor plume.

3.  Boron has higher boiling point than platinum, and was detected.

[TrevorMonty]

LCROSS detected high levels of gold in polar craters.

Some counterpoints:

1.  The LCROSS Centaur impactor contained gold foil.

2.  Meteoritic debris has more platinum than gold, but platinum wasn't detected in the vapor plume.

3.  Boron has higher boiling point than platinum, and was detected.

They accounted for foil. I don't think platinum migrations like gold dust does. At this stage its a theory until some PSR material can be examined by robot.

[LMT]

LCROSS detected high levels of gold in polar craters.

Some counterpoints:

1.  The LCROSS Centaur impactor contained gold foil.

2.  Meteoritic debris has more platinum than gold, but platinum wasn't detected in the vapor plume.

3.  Boron has higher boiling point than platinum, and was detected.

They accounted for foil. I don't think platinum migrations like gold dust does. At this stage its a theory until some PSR material can be examined by robot.

I don't think they accounted for it, but discovered it afterward.  Controlled lab experiments could check the contamination effect, but yes, sample analysis would be more informative.

Au and Pt are adjacent transition metals, both conductors, with similar densities and electronegativities.  I'd think particles of either should be electrostatically active.  How to mobilize one, and not the other?

Also, it's worth noting that in the decade after LCROSS, no asteroid-mining startup proposed a follow-up lunar assay lander, in hope of lunar gold claim.  Or has there been such a proposal?

[Coastal Ron]

A colony may be easier to build on Mars from a physical standpoint, but Luna is probably easier from an economic one. I think there's a good (>5%) chance that we could see  small Lunar city in the next couple of decades, with an economy driven by tourism and mining...

As to mining, mining what? And don't say Helium 3, because there is zero demand for that here on Earth. And don't say propellant, because even though that would have demand, it is local demand, so it would not be producing GDP, just offsetting the amount of money needing to be invested from Earth.

Gems and minerals that form by geological processes that are unique to the moon (or wherever). Or maybe just formed on the moon/wherever. People pay orders of magnitude more for bottled water than tapwater, even in regions where it's perfectly fine to drink. So adding the label 'from the moon/wherever' is bound to increase the price of things that are already luxury items.

Fiji Water is a good example of this, but personally I only used to buy it for the square bottles (they fit in my backpack pockets very nicely). Otherwise bottled water is a commodity, and you have to compete on price. As for gems from the Moon, how do you keep counterfeiters out? You can't, not in the volumes you'd need to make money on the endeavor.

None of that is needed on Earth. But it would be valuable for growing colonies off of Earth...

So what do those colonies/settlements do so they can even pay for luxury items like precious metals? (or to grow to a scale where the can use enough of these in industrial processes that it makes commercial sense to build an extraction plant for them on the moon? However, that point could be reached relatively early if the precious metals are gathered as a byproduct of fuel production or somesuch).

In your previous post, you had people pay for their own ticket there. So how do they pay for what they need when they're already there? If the humanitarian effort is to grow those colonies, why not let those colonies produce the precious metals locally, rather than import them from the moon?

Not intended as a snarky remark. Just pointing out that if economic sense isn't your driver, that impacts the choices for the infrastructure.

Elon Musk is treating the colonization of Mars like a humanitarian effort. He is spending his own money, and the profits of a company he is the majority stakeholder of (i.e. SpaceX), to "get the ball rolling" so to speak. But he knows he can't do it all by himself, which is why he expects colonists to pay their own way.

So to answer two of your questions:

1. As a humanitarian effort I expect some subset of people on Earth (me included) will donate to the cause. So the whole thing will be funded, to some degree, by those going and those supporting those going, which could be the public, private companies, and even governments. It will take a LOT of money, for generations.

2. In order to reduce the amount of money that will be needed, one way is to reduce the amount of material that needs to be shipped to the colony for support and growth. That can be done with in situ resource utilization (ISRU), and the material mined, refined, or created on Mars will be more valuable ON MARS than it will be on any market back on Earth. :

Elon Musk: "Well I think any natural resource extraction on Mars would be, the output would be for Mars. It definitely wouldn't make sense to transport stuff 200 million miles back to Earth. You know, honestly, if you had like crack cocaine on Mars, like in pre-packaged palets, it still wouldn't make sense to transport it back here. Maybe good times for the Martians, but not back here."

[LMT]

...material mined, refined, or created on Mars will be more valuable ON MARS than it will be on any market back on Earth.

With notable exception of martian precious metals.

But returning to cislunar space...

[high road]

A colony may be easier to build on Mars from a physical standpoint, but Luna is probably easier from an economic one. I think there's a good (>5%) chance that we could see  small Lunar city in the next couple of decades, with an economy driven by tourism and mining...

As to mining, mining what? And don't say Helium 3, because there is zero demand for that here on Earth. And don't say propellant, because even though that would have demand, it is local demand, so it would not be producing GDP, just offsetting the amount of money needing to be invested from Earth.

Gems and minerals that form by geological processes that are unique to the moon (or wherever). Or maybe just formed on the moon/wherever. People pay orders of magnitude more for bottled water than tapwater, even in regions where it's perfectly fine to drink. So adding the label 'from the moon/wherever' is bound to increase the price of things that are already luxury items.

Fiji Water is a good example of this, but personally I only used to buy it for the square bottles (they fit in my backpack pockets very nicely). Otherwise bottled water is a commodity, and you have to compete on price. As for gems from the Moon, how do you keep counterfeiters out? You can't, not in the volumes you'd need to make money on the endeavor.

And still, any bottled water is orders of magnitude more expensive than tap water, even in my country where there is no difference in quality. And that's not even including water with 'straight from the source' which supposed health benefits, which is sold at even higher prices in tourist shops, or water with supposed magical properties, like Lourdes. Or bottles of Holy water. What price would people be willing to give for water that's never been touched by humans, or hasn't been dinosaur urine at some point in time? Regardless whether there's actually any merit to these claims.

Counterfeit is always a problem. But there are still brands, so I assume there are ways to mitigate this problem.

None of that is needed on Earth. But it would be valuable for growing colonies off of Earth...

So what do those colonies/settlements do so they can even pay for luxury items like precious metals? (or to grow to a scale where the can use enough of these in industrial processes that it makes commercial sense to build an extraction plant for them on the moon? However, that point could be reached relatively early if the precious metals are gathered as a byproduct of fuel production or somesuch).

In your previous post, you had people pay for their own ticket there. So how do they pay for what they need when they're already there? If the humanitarian effort is to grow those colonies, why not let those colonies produce the precious metals locally, rather than import them from the moon?

Not intended as a snarky remark. Just pointing out that if economic sense isn't your driver, that impacts the choices for the infrastructure.

Elon Musk is treating the colonization of Mars like a humanitarian effort. He is spending his own money, and the profits of a company he is the majority stakeholder of (i.e. SpaceX), to "get the ball rolling" so to speak. But he knows he can't do it all by himself, which is why he expects colonists to pay their own way.

So to answer two of your questions:

1. As a humanitarian effort I expect some subset of people on Earth (me included) will donate to the cause. So the whole thing will be funded, to some degree, by those going and those supporting those going, which could be the public, private companies, and even governments. It will take a LOT of money, for generations.

2. In order to reduce the amount of money that will be needed, one way is to reduce the amount of material that needs to be shipped to the colony for support and growth. That can be done with in situ resource utilization (ISRU), and the material mined, refined, or created on Mars will be more valuable ON MARS than it will be on any market back on Earth. :

Elon Musk: "Well I think any natural resource extraction on Mars would be, the output would be for Mars. It definitely wouldn't make sense to transport stuff 200 million miles back to Earth. You know, honestly, if you had like crack cocaine on Mars, like in pre-packaged palets, it still wouldn't make sense to transport it back here. Maybe good times for the Martians, but not back here."

Ah yes, that was the interview where he simultaneously said that a ticket to Mars would cost about 500,000 dollars, but they can't bring back prepackaged crack at a profit. Admittedly, not in the same sentence  ;-) so Elon apparently has a fixer who asks less than 5 bucks per gram of crack. :p now we know where he gets his inspiration. And that's when comparing Starships going empty one way and transporting a human being isn't volume limited and everything needed to keep them alive and their own mass is a mere 100 kg.

How about the clip where he says the way back is 'essentially free' because they need those ships back? Any material that has a considerable value on Earth but can't be processed easily enough or has little use on Mars because the size of the settlement isn't big enough yet, is going to be cheaper to bring back even while importing the finished product made from it. That's what I meant with the calculation being entirely different. Doesn't matter if it's the moon or Mars. Rather than asking 'does it make more sense to do x on the moon/Mars rather than on Earth', the question becomes 'given existing underused assets (eg fuel production, spacecraft returning empty, x may be a waste resource of another production process), does it cost less to invest in producing x and sending it back to Earth to sell at market price and use said money to buy y, versus investing in producing y locally'. Once high throughput commodities like fuel, staple foodstuff, oxygen, water, construction steel, Mars/lunarcrete, copper wire, simple plastics etc are produced locally, there are still an enormous diversity of products that will have to be imported.

[Coastal Ron]

...material mined, refined, or created on Mars will be more valuable ON MARS than it will be on any market back on Earth.

With notable exception of martian precious metals.

But returning to cislunar space...

There is no demonstrated market for elements common across our solar system having a higher demand just because they are sourced from a location other than Earth.

For instance, 78% of the gold consumed each year is used in the manufacture of jewelry. But the jewelry market already has alloys of gold that range from white (silver alloy) to red (copper alloy), along with the pure gold color. There is nothing you can import from Mars that will be unique or different from what is already available here on Earth.

As to the other 22% of the market, they are industrial, and they only care for pure gold at the lowest price.

So all of this bolsters my point that the best use for material mined and refined on Mars, will be ON MARS.

[Coastal Ron]

Fiji Water is a good example of this, but personally I only used to buy it for the square bottles (they fit in my backpack pockets very nicely). Otherwise bottled water is a commodity, and you have to compete on price. As for gems from the Moon, how do you keep counterfeiters out? You can't, not in the volumes you'd need to make money on the endeavor.

And still, any bottled water is orders of magnitude more expensive than tap water, even in my country where there is no difference in quality. And that's not even including water with 'straight from the source' which supposed health benefits, which is sold at even higher prices in tourist shops, or water with supposed magical properties, like Lourdes. Or bottles of Holy water. What price would people be willing to give for water that's never been touched by humans, or hasn't been dinosaur urine at some point in time? Regardless whether there's actually any merit to these claims.

Counterfeit is always a problem. But there are still brands, so I assume there are ways to mitigate this problem.

You may assume that, but counterfeiting is a constant global problem, and even the diamond trade has a major problem with it. So if you can't stop counterfeit Gucci bags, how are you going to stop counterfeit gems which require some sort of laboratory test in order to validate if they are what they say they are?

Bottom line is that if you are relying on marketing to distinguish the value of your product, it doesn't matter where it is sourced from. Which means Mars products can't be a dependable source of income.

Elon Musk: "Well I think any natural resource extraction on Mars would be, the output would be for Mars. It definitely wouldn't make sense to transport stuff 200 million miles back to Earth. You know, honestly, if you had like crack cocaine on Mars, like in pre-packaged palets, it still wouldn't make sense to transport it back here. Maybe good times for the Martians, but not back here."

...How about the clip where he says the way back is 'essentially free' because they need those ships back?

People that paid to get to Mars have a free return trip.

Any material that has a considerable value on Earth but can't be processed easily enough or has little use on Mars because the size of the settlement isn't big enough yet, is going to be cheaper to bring back even while importing the finished product made from it. That's what I meant with the calculation being entirely different.

And what would this theoretical material be?

Doesn't matter if it's the moon or Mars. Rather than asking 'does it make more sense to do x on the moon/Mars rather than on Earth', the question becomes 'given existing underused assets (eg fuel production, spacecraft returning empty, x may be a waste resource of another production process), does it cost less to invest in producing x and sending it back to Earth to sell at market price and use said money to buy y, versus investing in producing y locally'.

Here in the U.S. our oil production capabilities are dependent on world prices, and up until recently there was stability in the marketplace that allowed the extraction of hard to get oil using the newish technology called fracking. But the cost of extraction in the U.S. is still far higher than it is in Russia and Saudi Arabia, and the recent oil war just wiped out a lot of oil extraction companies here in the U.S.

You can't build a new world if the economics of your new world are tied to the commodity prices of another world. That gives your customers too much control over you, and believe me they will utilize that to their benefit.

No, when Mars is colonized it will need to create an economy that while requiring capital support from Earth, it is building up a local economy that is insulated from Earth.

If anything this pandemic has shown how colonies on Mars (and everywhere else) need to have the ability sustain themselves to a certain degree when the Earth goes through economic recessions and depressions. And that can't be through export to Earth since there will always be too much competition.

[high road]

...material mined, refined, or created on Mars will be more valuable ON MARS than it will be on any market back on Earth.

With notable exception of martian precious metals.

But returning to cislunar space...

There is no demonstrated market for elements common across our solar system having a higher demand just because they are sourced from a location other than Earth.

For instance, 78% of the gold consumed each year is used in the manufacture of jewelry. But the jewelry market already has alloys of gold that range from white (silver alloy) to red (copper alloy), along with the pure gold color. There is nothing you can import from Mars that will be unique or different from what is already available here on Earth.

As to the other 22% of the market, they are industrial, and they only care for pure gold at the lowest price.

So all of this bolsters my point that the best use for material mined and refined on Mars, will be ON MARS.

Think gemstones, not materials that are ground or smelted. Things that need specific geological processes to form. Mars and the moon have had other geological processes, who knows what we might find. Maybe nothing, there's always that chance. Just saying it's possible.

Graphite and diamonds are the same element, but their price is a little different. Industrial diamonds are cheaper too. Does it make sense to get them from the moon/Mars if they exist here? Not if that's the raison d'être of the settlement. But if their market price is higher than the extra effort it takes (expressed in stuff you need to import from earth to sustain that activity on Mars), yeah, that does mitigate costs more than trying to produce relatively complex things that you don't need massive amounts of. (So everything not on my list in the other post)

And most of the gold that's produced, isn't even consumed, but stockpiled in bars. For the foreseeable future, Earth is the only place that can afford to pay exorbitant amounts of money for stuff it doesn't really have a use for.

Other ideas for Mars (although OT): not a large industry, but you could probably bring back some fossilized remains from the time it had water. As long as the supply remains limited, the price per kg would be quite big. Plenty of collectors around, even after researchers have had their chance to study enough of them.

[Coastal Ron]

...material mined, refined, or created on Mars will be more valuable ON MARS than it will be on any market back on Earth.

With notable exception of martian precious metals.

But returning to cislunar space...

There is no demonstrated market for elements common across our solar system having a higher demand just because they are sourced from a location other than Earth.

For instance, 78% of the gold consumed each year is used in the manufacture of jewelry. But the jewelry market already has alloys of gold that range from white (silver alloy) to red (copper alloy), along with the pure gold color. There is nothing you can import from Mars that will be unique or different from what is already available here on Earth.

As to the other 22% of the market, they are industrial, and they only care for pure gold at the lowest price.

So all of this bolsters my point that the best use for material mined and refined on Mars, will be ON MARS.

Think gemstones, not materials that are ground or smelted. And most of the gold that's produced, isn't even consumed, but stockpiled.

Stating there are $Billion markets for random things is not proof that there truly is real demand. Nor do you have any idea what the production costs will be, which dictates what the export pricing is.

[high road]

...material mined, refined, or created on Mars will be more valuable ON MARS than it will be on any market back on Earth.

With notable exception of martian precious metals.

But returning to cislunar space...

There is no demonstrated market for elements common across our solar system having a higher demand just because they are sourced from a location other than Earth.

For instance, 78% of the gold consumed each year is used in the manufacture of jewelry. But the jewelry market already has alloys of gold that range from white (silver alloy) to red (copper alloy), along with the pure gold color. There is nothing you can import from Mars that will be unique or different from what is already available here on Earth.

As to the other 22% of the market, they are industrial, and they only care for pure gold at the lowest price.

So all of this bolsters my point that the best use for material mined and refined on Mars, will be ON MARS.

Think gemstones, not materials that are ground or smelted. And most of the gold that's produced, isn't even consumed, but stockpiled.

Stating there are $Billion markets for random things is not proof that there truly is real demand. Nor do you have any idea what the production costs will be, which dictates what the export pricing is.

I mention that in every post: it needs to cost less than the market price. But that there's a billion dollar market for existing things is absolutely proof that there's demand for that existing thing. At current market price. It's not proof that there will be demand for things we haven't found yet. There are plenty of materials on Earth that are not considered precious, even though they might be rare. Just trying to think positive here ;-)

Fiji Water is a good example of this, but personally I only used to buy it for the square bottles (they fit in my backpack pockets very nicely). Otherwise bottled water is a commodity, and you have to compete on price. As for gems from the Moon, how do you keep counterfeiters out? You can't, not in the volumes you'd need to make money on the endeavor.

And still, any bottled water is orders of magnitude more expensive than tap water, even in my country where there is no difference in quality. And that's not even including water with 'straight from the source' which supposed health benefits, which is sold at even higher prices in tourist shops, or water with supposed magical properties, like Lourdes. Or bottles of Holy water. What price would people be willing to give for water that's never been touched by humans, or hasn't been dinosaur urine at some point in time? Regardless whether there's actually any merit to these claims.

Counterfeit is always a problem. But there are still brands, so I assume there are ways to mitigate this problem.

You may assume that, but counterfeiting is a constant global problem, and even the diamond trade has a major problem with it. So if you can't stop counterfeit Gucci bags, how are you going to stop counterfeit gems which require some sort of laboratory test in order to validate if they are what they say they are?

Bottom line is that if you are relying on marketing to distinguish the value of your product, it doesn't matter where it is sourced from. Which means Mars products can't be a dependable source of income.

Exactly, counterfeit is always a problem (Intentionnaly repeating myself here). To take your example: even though there are other producers that make bags that look identical to Gucci, and are sometimes of the same quality, and sometimes come from the same factories (not sure if Gucci is one of these), at lower cost than Gucci, Gucci is still very succesful, even though there is no appreciable difference other than people wanting to own a 'real' Gucci. The very fact that it has a massive income, suggests it is not being crushed by those conterfeiters. Although I don't doubt that if everyone who buys counterfeit would buy their products instead, they would be massively more successful. At the same time, I doubt most of those would bother buying a real one if their was no cheaper alternative.

In the case of diamonds, serial numbers are used. That would be an affordable way to mitigate (not reduce to zero) counterfeit gemstones.

Elon Musk: "Well I think any natural resource extraction on Mars would be, the output would be for Mars. It definitely wouldn't make sense to transport stuff 200 million miles back to Earth. You know, honestly, if you had like crack cocaine on Mars, like in pre-packaged palets, it still wouldn't make sense to transport it back here. Maybe good times for the Martians, but not back here."

...How about the clip where he says the way back is 'essentially free' because they need those ships back?

People that paid to get to Mars have a free return trip.

Ah, so assuming everyone eventually returns (worst case scenario), that's 250000 for a single trip. Assuming next to no one returns (yay, hopefully), that's 500000 for a single trip. In the worst case scenario, there's no spare free space. In the other extreme, there's an empty starship flying back. As soon as there's a single person not coming back, and you have enough fuel production to send back a full Starship (and assuming that there's nothing you could have used that extra fuel for, or whatever went into making that fuel), it costs a grand total of 0$ to bring back prepackaged crack. Making that crack on Mars, or getting it through customs on Earth, is a whole other matter.

Any material that has a considerable value on Earth but can't be processed easily enough or has little use on Mars because the size of the settlement isn't big enough yet, is going to be cheaper to bring back even while importing the finished product made from it. That's what I meant with the calculation being entirely different.

And what would this theoretical material be?

Well, if the tailings of the water mining for the fuel production plant contain gold, gems or platinum group metals, refining those on a small scale could be relatively cheap per gram. Assuming (always assuming) there are people to do the job (that use resources to stay alive if they're productive or not, so no extra costs there), there's some safety margin on the fuel production output and ships are not returning fully loaded. Otherwise, costs skyrocket.

You would continue to load up your returning craft with these for a very long time (expressed in growth of the colony), until the colony is actually big enough that producing finished products locally out of those (which is far more difficult en thus expensive) makes sense.

It's quite simple:

- If your ships aren't coming back empty, your people are returning as fast as they are going. Your settlement fails. (or they have something to fill their ships with)
- If your fuel production is only big enough to send back mostly empty ships, that's a colony at high risk of failure as soon as something goes wrong. And something always goes wrong eventually. Your settlement fails.
- If it's possible to produce raw materials for your colony there, and given that both statements above are not fulfilled, you can send them back at 0 transportation cost to your colony. Other than the opportunity cost of what you could have done with that fuel or the energy that went into making that fuel. Or the extra hours of work, etc.
- If certain resources happen to have considerable value, as mentioned above, and if they are easy to collect (not having had people collect them for (tens of) thousands of years hopefully means there are some pretty decent locations), sending them back at 0 cost to your settlement, makes money. Money is your biggest problem when sustaining a Mars base.
- If these people could have been doing something that would allow you to reduce imports by more (per hour of labour) than producing this stuff on Mars brings in, then have them do that and do no export.
- At a certain point, given that your colony grows, it will reach a point where all high troughput goods are produced locally, but lots of stuff still needs to be imported (computers, high tech equipment, replacement parts, ...). Producing these locally is going to be far more difficult than digging up gold or platinum locally. Return to the previous statement.

Will you ever run a profitable operation? I don't really think so. But eventually, the colony might need to import less and less, and by doing so, reach a positive trade balance. But that's a big if.

Doesn't matter if it's the moon or Mars. Rather than asking 'does it make more sense to do x on the moon/Mars rather than on Earth', the question becomes 'given existing underused assets (eg fuel production, spacecraft returning empty, x may be a waste resource of another production process), does it cost less to invest in producing x and sending it back to Earth to sell at market price and use said money to buy y, versus investing in producing y locally'.

Here in the U.S. our oil production capabilities are dependent on world prices, and up until recently there was stability in the marketplace that allowed the extraction of hard to get oil using the newish technology called fracking. But the cost of extraction in the U.S. is still far higher than it is in Russia and Saudi Arabia, and the recent oil war just wiped out a lot of oil extraction companies here in the U.S.

You can't build a new world if the economics of your new world are tied to the commodity prices of another world. That gives your customers too much control over you, and believe me they will utilize that to their benefit.

No, when Mars is colonized it will need to create an economy that while requiring capital support from Earth, it is building up a local economy that is insulated from Earth.

If anything this pandemic has shown how colonies on Mars (and everywhere else) need to have the ability sustain themselves to a certain degree when the Earth goes through economic recessions and depressions. And that can't be through export to Earth since there will always be too much competition.

I see your point, but let's not forget the first export product of the first successful (eventually) English settlement was glass. There was no gold, and sweet tobacco wasn't cultivated there yet. Why glass? Because they had the means to do it, and it was just about the only thing they could do that would earn something to pay for further deliveries of supplies. Not because glass didn't exist back home. And that's on a world that has 'all resources to survive laying around'.

[LMT]

...material mined, refined, or created on Mars will be more valuable ON MARS than it will be on any market back on Earth.

With notable exception of martian precious metals.

There is no demonstrated market for elements common across our solar system having a higher demand [emphasis added] just because they are sourced from a location other than Earth.

Red Gold assumed no such thing:  only market price.

Don't tell an untrue story.

the way back is 'essentially free' because they need those ships back

Good observation.  And each ship could bring home 50 tons of precious-metal products.  Market price, as baseline.

Do you see the implications of geometric mine reinvestment?

[TrevorMonty]

The current space economy is based on exporting data to earth eg earth images, weather, satelite TV. That is still near term market.

Long term many of us Space Solar Power fans think that is future, which involves exporting energy. The power satellites would be built using ISRU from moon or NEA.
Space tourism has a import part to play in establishing CisLunar economy and help it grow. Other market is manufacturing of high value items in LEO from earth supplied raw materials.

With Mars I don't see business case for any of these markets.

Fusion could make SSP obsolete before it starts or make it cheaper as moving stuff around and operating in space would be cheaper.

[high road]

Let's not forget uranium and plutonium. Once we can extract/produce these in space for space (so still a way out), the biggest issue with nuclear power in space is gone. That'll make industries which require a lot of power more compact than big powersats.

[LMT]

Space tourism has a import part to play in establishing CisLunar economy...

A point e.g. for Marsliner cislunar tourism is that it could start shortly after Starships are certified, even in the 2020s.  It's quick Starship revenue that's logically reinvested in the first fleet, to the limit of tourism demand.

If that fleet eventually exceeds tourism demand, extra ships are repurposed elsewhere without waste of infrastructure.

[Coastal Ron]

...material mined, refined, or created on Mars will be more valuable ON MARS than it will be on any market back on Earth.

With notable exception of martian precious metals.

There is no demonstrated market for elements common across our solar system having a higher demand [emphasis added] just because they are sourced from a location other than Earth.

Red Gold assumed no such thing:  only market price.

Supply and demand go together. And you referencing another post you made doesn't make it any clearer what you mean.

the way back is 'essentially free' because they need those ships back

Good observation.  And each ship could bring home 50 tons of precious-metal products.  Market price, as baseline.

Do you see the implications of geometric mine reinvestment?

Actually a returning Starship won't have the ability to carry a full load of cargo, since for every kg of cargo you would need more than a kg of propellant to slow down and land on Earth. Earth requires far more propellant to land on than Mars requires.

And the main reason for returning a Starship from Mars is to be able to reuse it - which saves money that can ultimately make it more affordable to colonize Mars. So anything that complicates returning a Starship to Earth, like having to carry extra propellant because of extra cargo, is non-optimal.

[LMT]

...material mined, refined, or created on Mars will be more valuable ON MARS than it will be on any market back on Earth.

With notable exception of martian precious metals.

There is no demonstrated market for elements common across our solar system having a higher demand [emphasis added] just because they are sourced from a location other than Earth.

Red Gold assumed no such thing:  only market price.

Supply and demand go together. And you referencing another post you made doesn't make it any clearer what you mean.

Your talk about "higher demand" doesn't apply to Red Gold posts and revenue, plainly.  If you want to comment, review the posts.

[Coastal Ron]

...material mined, refined, or created on Mars will be more valuable ON MARS than it will be on any market back on Earth.

With notable exception of martian precious metals.

There is no demonstrated market for elements common across our solar system having a higher demand [emphasis added] just because they are sourced from a location other than Earth.

Red Gold assumed no such thing:  only market price.

Supply and demand go together. And you referencing another post you made doesn't make it any clearer what you mean.

Your talk about "higher demand" doesn't apply to Red Gold posts and revenue, plainly.  If you want to comment, review the posts.

Gold is gold. Calling it "Red Gold" is just marketing. Are you implying that there will be a market for gold that is mined on Mars?

And this is assuming that profitable deposits of gold can be found in the near-term on the surface of Mars, and that Mars miners would have the funding to set up mining and processing operations while they are trying to survive - just so they can ship the gold with a PR name to Earth.

I think we need to stick with reality...

[high road]

...material mined, refined, or created on Mars will be more valuable ON MARS than it will be on any market back on Earth.

With notable exception of martian precious metals.

There is no demonstrated market for elements common across our solar system having a higher demand [emphasis added] just because they are sourced from a location other than Earth.

Red Gold assumed no such thing:  only market price.

Supply and demand go together. And you referencing another post you made doesn't make it any clearer what you mean.

the way back is 'essentially free' because they need those ships back

Good observation.  And each ship could bring home 50 tons of precious-metal products.  Market price, as baseline.

Do you see the implications of geometric mine reinvestment?

Actually a returning Starship won't have the ability to carry a full load of cargo, since for every kg of cargo you would need more than a kg of propellant to slow down and land on Earth. Earth requires far more propellant to land on than Mars requires.

And the main reason for returning a Starship from Mars is to be able to reuse it - which saves money that can ultimately make it more affordable to colonize Mars. So anything that complicates returning a Starship to Earth, like having to carry extra propellant because of extra cargo, is non-optimal.

So no bringing back significant amounts of samples to study in earth labs then? Or aerobraking to slow down, so they can do the same landing as for P2P transport? These are supposed to be the things why Starship is a gamechanger... fuel is supposed to be the easy part. But ok, no full cargo on the return trip.

To your other post: if they're trying to survive, how are they setting up their own consumables production for themselves? Fuel production and plastics production requires mining. Marscrete production requires hauling large amounts of material. Copper wire for electricity requires mining and refining. Food production equipment will have to be imported from Earth for a while. No mining means no path to being less dependent from Earth. And with a group of highly intellectual people over there, they'll quickly figure out how to convert that equipment to other uses if they have any time to spare. Think gold divers and small time operations, not huge mining and refining plants.

[tbellman]

Actually a returning Starship won't have the ability to carry a full load of cargo, since for every kg of cargo you would need more than a kg of propellant to slow down and land on Earth. Earth requires far more propellant to land on than Mars requires.

So no bringing back significant amounts of samples to study in earth labs then? Or aerobraking to slow down, so they can do the same landing as for P2P transport? These are supposed to be the things why Starship is a gamechanger... fuel is supposed to be the easy part. But ok, no full cargo on the return trip.

Aerobraking will be used.  It is absolutely essential for descending to land on Earth.

Bringing back a few tonnes of samples should not be a problem on Starship.  But a few tens of tonnes might be.

Elon has said that they were planning for Starship to be able to land on Earth with 50 tonnes of cargo.  But I think that is less important than getting 100+ tonnes to Earth orbit, and to land with that on Mars and the Moon.  If they have problems, they will probably deprioritize downmass in favour of upmass, or flying soon.  And I don't think we on the outside know what engineering aspect that sets the return cargo limit on Starship, or if they will be able to bring 50 tonnes of cargo from Mars, not just from LEO, down to Earth.