How will be get to Mars? Is everyone, and everything going ride the big rockets up out of Earth’s gravity well at great expense? I think not because lower cost alternatives are emerging.
Dr. Brian Cox and his peers believe Earth’s Moon was created when another planet similar to Mars struck Earth a glancing blow, about 3 to 4 billion years ago. A good guess, and if true, this means the Moon is a mixture of old Earth and some other heavenly body.
Elements known to be present on the lunar surface include, among others, hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), silicon (Si), iron (Fe), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), aluminium (Al), manganese (Mn) and titanium (Ti) (1), all needed on Mars.
The Moon’s gravity is only one sixth of Earth. Much lower gravity translates into lower energy needed to chuck really big stuff off the surface, and with almost no atmosphere, the Moon is the clear winner if we can quickly build robotic mining, refining, and manufacturing on the Moon in time for immigrants arriving on the Mars in big numbers.
In the 1960s and 70s the Apollo astronauts needed three days to reach the Moon. Humans may soon be able to do make the trip in eight hours, and as our robots evolve their travel time could be as little as 30 minutes.
We will be exploring the feasibility of creating the first Mars Express shuttle as part of the On Mars project. Possibly staying in space for extended periods, space freighters would travel a round-robin path between Earth’s, the Moon and Mars’ orbits, with robots autonomously greeting the freighters to load and unload cargo in space, and then doing the heavy lifting to move the freight to or from the surface.
iBots on Mars 