Luna-Mars Trade
Mars could return dividends at the same time that Luna does if they join forces. Nfdha5 web20power.txt;1;1
Contents
Martian Needs
Manufactured Goods
Initial Martian settlements will have little industrial infrastructure, and will have to import many goods such as electronics and medicine. Lunar settlements are in a good position to supply some of these needs, as the energy cost of transport from Luna is much less than from Earth.
Financing
Like Lunar settlements, Martian settlements need funding to survive. Sales of Martian resources to Lunar and other interests could be a major source of cash.
Luna to Mars Transportation
To get goods from Luna to Mars, those goods could be launched from Luna with Mass Drivers and transferred from Earth's orbital position to Mars with a VASIMR propulsion system. Each delivery could be packed with a fiber glass composite heat shield and a woven glass fiber parachute. There would be no need to pack the parachute compactly for shipment. It would be woven in space from lunar materials. Some of the MTLMOS flights would be dedicated to launching refueled methane/oxygen retro-rockets for the final landing deceleration. The oxygen for the retro-rockets would be included with the shipments to Mars which would rendezvous at a space station to mate with retro-rockets while the VASIMR transport system would take a shipment to Luna.
Example product for Mars
We cannot yet predict with certainty how efficiently hydrogen will be recycled in the ilmenite hydrogen process for producing oxygen so let us guess that one part in a thousand of the hydrogen goes out with the ilmenite tailings in every batch. We can guess that one part in a thousand of both hydrogen and oxygen gets lost in electrolytic separation of oxygen from the water to get oxygen into storage tanks. So starting with 1000 pounds of hydrogen we get 998 pounds of hydrogen and 7922 pounds of oxygen from running that hydrogen once through the process. If each 10 pounds of oxygen requires a pound of tankage, then at 20cents a pound to launch electromagnetically from Luna to L2 and 20 cents a pound to launch electromagnetically from L2 to low Earth orbit, it will cost $3486 to ship 7922 pounds of oxygen to low Earth orbit from Luna. At $17700 a pound for gold on Earth today or $17700 a pound for hydrogen on Luna, $35400 worth of hydrogen were used up making the oxygen. That compares to $79 million to ship the same amount of oxygen from Earth to low Earth orbit. We have not considered here the cost of making the tankage or the maneuvering system to recircularize the orbit of the oxygen tanks after they are captured in low Earth orbit by aerobraking and some other costs, but we can guess these costs will amount to less than the $78,916,114 by which the cost of transportation from Earth exceeds the costs that we did consider. The main point here is that even if hydrogen on Luna costs as much per pound as gold on Earth (a reasonable guess), it does not rule out the economic use of hydrogen in industry. Many factors will affect the economic success or failure of lunar industry.
This oxygen delivered to low Earth orbit could be used for fueling colonization ships to Mars, used for shipping exports from Earth to Mars, used for industry in low Earth orbit, or used for transportation throughout the solar system. Money from the sale of this and any other exports could be used to pay for imports from Mars.
Mutual Needs
Settlements on Mars and Luna share many needs and opportunities.
Information
Information such as patented ideas, literature, scientific research, and computer programs can be created and traded between Luna and Mars at little to no transport expense using a radio link.
