Name | Description | Proximity | Viability Rating | Commentary |
Mars Orbital Space Station | Near | High | An orbital station around Mars, either on its own or attached to one of the Martian moons, would allow initial exploration of Mars and base building to be done telerobotically. It could also be a safe haven if anything went wrong in Mars-Orbit-Earth transit | |
Phobos space haven | Doorway to Mars | Near | High | See “Mrs Orbital Space Station”. Using Phobos would have the benefit of radiation shielding, especially if the base was burrowed under the surface |
Lunar mining | Providing fuel and metals for transit vehicles | Medium | Medium | According to many, this could be key to opening up the red planet to colonisation, not to mention the rest of the solar system If launch from Earth does not become cheap enough, it may be possible to mine ice water on the moon to produce rocket fuel. The lower gravity well of the moon would mean less cost in bringing it back into free space for use in interplanetary vehicles. Infrastructure cost high, production cost low. |
Immigration Shuttles | Medium | High | See Space-X. This is Elon Musk’s plan, to build a fleet of reusable spaceships, each able to ferry a hundred colonists to Mars. He’s already building the rocket | |
Earth catapult | Electromagnetic catapult to launch to Mars | Medium | Low | An electromagnetic catapult built, say, up the side of a mountain, to launch to orbit without the need for fuel. Unfortunately, the system would suffer from atmospheric drag. Rockets hold off on thrust until they reach Max Q, where the atmosphere density declines rapidly, at 35,000 ft. Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world, is 29,000 ft., so a rocket stage would still be needed to propel to orbit. This doesn’t even account for the difficulty in building 8,000m up the side of an irregularly shaped mountain |
Asteroid Mining | Far | Medium | Mining asteroids for volatiles and metals could produce rocket fuel, air and water, and building materials to build space vehicles and stations outside of a planet’s gravity well, vastly reducing costs getting to orbit and to interplanetary space. The initial infrastructure cost would be incredibly high, but the cost of exploring and colonising the solar system could be reduced considerably | |
Space elevator | Far | Medium | A space elevator on either Earth or Mars would make getting to orbit and interplanetary space as easy as… taking an elevator. However, the cost of building one would be incredible, and the materials needed have not yet even been invented | |
Vesta shipyards | Using the resources of the asteroid belt to build interplanetary transports | See “Asteroid Mining” |
Transorbital 