Alright left off last time mentioning it would be many tons of resources to get off Earth and into orbit, from there one will be halfway to anywhere. One will need materials to build up the artificial magnetic field, the buildings or other things used to pump the atmosphere full of whatever, the power generator, the place where colonist will live and work, the mining and drilling equipment, the place to grow the food and the food itself, along with the water to start off. On top of that any parts for the spaceship that can not be used for building on Mars and fuel used. Finally weight of the colonist would be added in. I'll probably go ahead and be rather liberal with the resource amounts, by like, a lot to get started off on long term sustainability, which looking up looks pretty challenging. Though the engineers could do their job of slashing ideas and making it 200% more efficient with less.
So looking up placing a magnetic generating shield at the L1 point of Mars was interesting, placing a 1 to 2 Tesla magnet is supposed to be able to protect the whole planet.
Vision 2050 (At the 1:36:10 mark.) discussed what a thing would do for Mars,
there is also the paper. One thing I found interesting is that the mention that by preventing the stripping of the atmosphere, Mar's out gassing would raise the pressure up and also the temperature up 4 Celsius. That would melt the carbon dioxide ice without even needed to bring in outside greenhouse gases to do it, as well as supposedly getting the water ice to melt too. Though with such a low average temperature that is even lower at the poles, I do not know about that, maybe it would melt and there would be oceans. One thing that was not mentioned however that I wanted to focus on was how much resources this would take, which was not mentioned. Looking at random forums and all the science news articles only turned up one idea on the size of such a magnet, best I got so I am going to work with it. The 1 Tesla magnets would be 2-3 kilometers² and have a volume of 100,000 kilometers³, not including support structure or power supply, and if made of samarium-cobalt it would weigh around 100 kilotons. Now it needs something to power it from what I have read, and solar panels seem to be the popular choice, and those magnets would require a lot of energy to maintain that Telsa. Lets say that it would need the amount of power the US goes through, probably more than needed, there would need to be an area of 48,000-50,000 kilometers² of solar panels. Given that the average solar panel weighs 10-20 kilograms per square meter, that would be a total of 500,000,000,000 meters² so 1,000,000 kilotons. Probably butchered that math but I'll take it as a very high estimate and leave it as that, lots of weight already. Read that the size of the solar array needed could end up acting like a solar sail and pushing the structure out of the L1 point, and looking it up I found that that point was not really stable. So there would be more fuel needed to keep that in place, which would be a permanent on going thing, so a continuous amount of fuel weight needed to keep it in place.
Now for the option of building wires on the ground to generate a magnetic field,
this paper goes over all the details needed to put such a system on Earth. Though it can be applied to other planets and moons or what not. For Earth the researchers already gave the end math stating the weight would be around 907 kilotons for the longest cable. Given that Mar's circumference is about half of Earth's, it would be less weight. Volume of the largest cable would be 37,919 kilometers³, just multiplying by 12 gives 455,028 kilometers³, more volume than the base magnets needed in space. Feeling a little lazy here so just saying that all of that volume is liquid nitrogen and ignoring the metal and vacuum the weight of that would be 366 kilotons. Little more weight than all the samarium-cobalt magnets in space option. One of the positive notes is that this option would not need as much energy to power, so less weight in the power generators. The paper listed only needing 640 megawatts for the longest cable, multiple by 12 to get more than enough watts to power the Mars cables at 7680 megawatts. Since I used solar panels for powering the last field I will use it here too. Lets say the average solar panel is 2 meters by 1 meter (Rounded up.) and generates an average of 300 watts. Also include that it would take about 5 acres to produce 1 megawatt, 5 acres time 7680 gets after conversion 155 kilometers², already way less than that needed to power the 1 Tesla magnet with my terrible math skills. It would weigh 3,100 kilotons, also way less. The negative note here however is that Mars has more dust in the atmosphere and gets less sunlight, so one would probably need way more solar panels, probably not up to that required for the space option though. And the positive side is that once in place it would not need metric tons of fuel to keep in place. Both would need upkeep however and replace parts or what not, no way around it over the many many years.
Continuing with my flawed math lets move onto getting that atmosphere pumped in. If one wants to go with putting in a magnetic field will eventually cause Mars to build up an atmosphere on its own one can skip this part of rambling. Last time I mentioned Scherer Steam Electric Generating Station and how it burns through about 9,979,032 metric tons of coal. Needing 20 years at the best that would mean one needs 199,581 kilotons to produce all the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases necessary. One also needs air to burn that coal, Mars air will not cut it, so lets say for this the amount of air to burn one kilogram of coal is 7-9 kilograms. So 199,581,000,000 kilograms of coal, needs 1,796 kilotons of air just to use for burning stuff. Fun fact the Earth has 498,951,607,000 kilotons of atmosphere. Anyways now that one has the fuel now one needs an enclosure to hold the stuff to burn, tried looking up amount of materials needed to build a coal plant, did not get far. So I looked for other places to try to extrapolate terribly from. Looking up the Hoover Dam I found that it took 3,440,497 meters³ of concrete for 8,257 kilotons and 84 kilotons of steel, iron, and other metals. Seems like a nice big place to build to hold all the coal and air to burn stuff in. But that is a dam, seems kind of odd to me to try and use that as a base. So looking around with no results lead me to, the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant, (Yay Arizona for all the information.) turns out they have
a nice free book going over all the plant needs. (Materials used and needed starts page 10-5) It lists 1,039 kilotons of concrete used and 66 kilotons of other materials. Probably more reasonable, and hey, if one wants to build it just like Palo Verde just like our power plant Earth already has it would only need 17,700 metric tons of uranium to produce power for 40 years. Page 10-6 goes through the process of what is needed and what would come out. It would produce 4 gigawatts and take up only 16 kilometers², much more efficient than the solar panels. Though if one were to use it for nuclear power it would need about 76,000,000 meters³ of water a year to keep cool. But it is an option if Mars has an abundance of water. That is it for my rambling there, should give a basic idea of stuff needed to burn coal and hopefully produce power.
Now it is time to move onto housing for living and working or what not. Looking at 555 humanoid shaped and mostly living things maybe that need indoor space to not die on Mars. I foolishly looked up how much resources it took to build things like the International Space Station or habitat modules with no success, terrible at Googling this stuff it seems. So I looked up,
how much is needed to build a house. Cased closed just multiple that by 500 or so and one is looking good right, just redesign it to be more air tight and interconnect it or something, it will be fine no. Alright lets look at some bigger buildings that can hold more people. Towers seem like they can hold more than enough people, the materials used in those could be a poor estimate I can work with. The Willis Tower used about 69 kilotons of steel, 55,047 meters³ of concrete so 132 kilotons, and 16 kilotons of mechanical equipment as well as some weight in all of its glass windows, 16,100 bronze-tinted windows or so. It provides 418,064 meters² of floor space, that would give each individual 753 meters², though it would probably end up being way less so the structure could support the pressure difference of the air and make room for air locks or other special places as well as work areas. Another tower example is the Empire State Building, which used 55 kilotons of steel, 47,402 meters³ of concrete as well as 5,663 meters³ of limestone and granite for 129 kilotons. It provides 250,838 meters² of floor space, way less space for just a few less kilotons, it starts to paint a picture, probably not. Depends on how much space one wants to give to each individual, the more space the better, but more weight the worse. Lets look at the currently largest tower, the Burj Khalifa, it used 39 kilotons of steel rebar and 330,000 meters³ of concrete so 792 kilotons providing 334,000 meters² of floor space. Which is surprising as it is more materials under the listed amounts for less floor space, so I guess it depends on how one wants to use the materials too. For more crazy ideas I also managed to find the
NASA Vehicle Assembly Building, it used 49,696 meters³ of concrete so 119 kilotons and 89 kilotons of steel. Go even deeper looking around,
could always base the base off an aircraft carrier in materials used. I mean it has enough storage to feed a lot of people for a long time, must be doing something right. Well that should give an idea for now, seems like I want to build a big base of steel and concrete.
Lets look at what the people and the animals will need now in terms of growing food, having water, being able to deal with their waste, and having enough air to breath. I am going to say that every living creature is going to need 4,047 meters² of farmland to produce enough of a variety of food to feed themselves. From what I have read on how long it takes to grow plants it can range from a month to a few months, the colonists will need food brought with them to wait out this time. Even if one does start going crops before the living get to the destination it would not hurt to have back up supplies in case of a bad harvest or two. I will use the American diet of a person on average eating 0.9 metric tons of food per year, so 410 kilotons of long lasting food would not hurt for one to bring along. For water it is about 0.2 meters³ per year, this is probably lower than some other country. That would mean one would have to bring along 91 meters³ of water per year, which depends on how fast one thinks they can start getting the water off Mars drinkable. Which would equal 91 metric tons per year of weight in water brought along. The plants themselves are also going to need water,
this website lists the most water using crop to need 2,500 millimeters of water over a growing cycle. Lets say there are four growing cycles a year just to have more than enough, looking at 10,000 millimeters of water. What the website goes on to say is that a rainfall of 1 millimeter supplies 0.001 meters³, or 1 liter of water to each square meter of the field. The total land that is going to be needed for farming is going to be 1,841,385 meters², given the formula that would mean one needs 18,413,850 meters³ of water per year. Which is about 18,414 kilotons of weight per year. Now it would probably be smart to build greenhouses to protect the crops from dealing with transpiration to death.
There are a few kinds of plastics to work with, if one wants to have a go at it have fun. So far even using the thinnest weakest plastic I get a weight of over 3,000,000 kilotons for the roof of the structure. Been driving me a little insane since I have no idea if that should be right or not. Maybe it is suppose to be that high. So lets just say that they have the place to grow the food, most likely it will just end up outside anyways and I am just an over alarmist over the rate of losing stuff. Now people produce waste, average person produces 163 kilograms of poop and 0.5 meters³ of urine, probably need to bring more water in looking back at that 0.2 now. Though the
poop and the
urine should not be too difficult to deal with effectively. Air is going to be another thing that there is going to need to be a lot for people, the average person breathes 11,000 liters of air a day, so with 455 breathing things that is 5,005,000 liters a day. That would be a weight of 6,006 kilograms of air for everyone to breath depending on how good the recycling system for air is in place.
Finally the last thing I can think of is the drilling equipment for getting the water, lucky for me
the National Petroleum Council listed off all the materials needed to make their rigs and what not for getting oil. It was close enough for me. It lists that a total of 2,769 kilotons of steel, copper, aluminum, and other metals were used for American oil gathering. It goes on to list in what ways the materials were used in purpose, figured that would be a nice starting base for drilling for water on Mars as well as gathering any water from the surface oceans if they form. The report also listed that all those wells and what not produced 995,539 meters³ a day of oil, which if set up on Mars produced the same amount of water it would be more than enough to supply all the water needs of this current set up, if I did the math right. Since the nuclear power option would only take 208,220 meters³ a day, the farms would take 50,449 meters³ a day, and individuals would take 0.25 meters³ a day. Seems like a lot left over for industrial use or something.
Right now space ship building and fuel are looking to be a whole other beast to improperly tackle. Right now adding up all these little projects, if one wanted to do them all on a material scale one is looking at 1,313,521 kilotons of stuff to get off Earth and to Mars. (Not even counting the greenhouse failed math of mine.) Will probably look over the math in this post with some shame a few times, look up what a space ship needs, how long it would take to build all of this, and how many people would be needed to build or produce all the materials for this project or what not. If you read through all that rambling, well, thank you for taking the time with this one.