Yes, but Mars low orbit is closer to Jupiter than LEO and the moon. Building space elevators for Mars is going to be a lot cheaper, so economics is still going to favor industry controlled by Mars, at least until the difference becomes insignificant between Mars and Earth for building space elevators/some form of access to low orbit. (At which point cultural and human capital (sentience capital?) of Earth might make it dominant in the Solar System once again.)
We don't build oil refineries above deep-sea oil wells.
We don't build foundries next to iron mines.
We don't cut diamonds next to diamond mines.
We don't put textile factories in the middle of cotton fields.
We ship bauxite to where electricity costs are the cheapest.
South Africa is the major producer of many important minerals, but it doesn't control the world's industries.
Why then would economics "favor industry controlled by Mars"?
I can conceive of a future where that's so, but only in timescales of several centuries, and it's not at all obvious that there will be any time when Mars will be more important economically than the Earth.
When did we ever have a refinery above a deep-sea oil well?
When was the diamond cutting industry ever primarily located at diamond mines?
I can think of any number of examples where high transportation costs were never high enough to cause the production site to control "industry" in general, or even the specific industry it was in.
Consider ivory. For several hundred years, Greenland was the main supplier of ivory - specifically walrus ivory - to Europe, until elephant ivory from Africa became more abundant in the 1400s. But Greenland's dominance of a handful of goods (polar bear fur being another), did not lead to "industry controlled by" Greenland.
Beaver pelts would be another example. The market was in Europe, the trapping was done in the US (due to near extinction of the Eurasian beaver). The individual trappers in the American wilds did not control or dominate the fur market - it was the trading companies which did that.
And again I mention South Africa. Its "estimated share of world platinum production amounted to 77%; kyanite and other materials, 55%; chromium, 45%; palladium, 39%; vermiculite, 39%; vanadium, 38%; zirconium, 30%; manganese, 21%; rutile, 20%; ilmenite, 19%; gold, 11%;" and so on.
But the market is so large and complex that domination of those niches doesn't naturally lead to domination of the entire market by South Africa.
And overall market domination is what stcredzero proposes for Mars.
But I can be wrong. What is your scenario for how economics will "favor industry controlled by Mars"?
> When did we ever have a refinery above a deep-sea oil well?
Refineries are generally located near the ocean, which is to say, economically "close" to transportation.
Ivory, beaver pelts, and platinum are/were relatively concentrated forms of wealth. Terrestrial transportation is not as big an issue with those as it was with, say, the proximity of iron and coke in the US in the earlier days of the industrial revolution. The key point here, is that those resources were controlled by the US.
> The individual trappers in the American wilds did not control or dominate the fur market - it was the trading companies which did that.
They clearly didn't control such trade without local representatives. Nor did Europe retain such control in the long run.
> But the market is so large and complex that domination of those niches doesn't naturally lead to domination of the entire market by South Africa.
Because with modern transportation, everything is now fairly "close." Unless you are dealing with quite large quantities, location is often no longer an issue on Earth.
> We don't build oil refineries above deep-sea oil wells.
No, but we did build them next to waterways which facilitated transportation. The oceans are no longer "global" when the relevant context becomes larger than the Earth. In a solar-system wide context, the Earth is like a populous resource-rich country with just a few very poor harbors.
> it's not at all obvious that there will be any time when Mars will be more important economically than the Earth.
I also point this out in another thread here. It's also possible that technology makes the location advantage of Mars moot before it has a large enough population to be a major player and there is a solar-system wide economy to be a player in. It will undoubtedly be important, however.
However, you have not established that it's true. Space travel could be more like hovercraft travel. There rare cases where hovercraft are the most appropriate means of transport.
Or to be more generous, it could be like air travel. The air cargo and passenger industry is huge, yes. But it's dwarfed by ship, train, and road transportation.
Nor have I established that it's a false analogy. I've only pointed out many counter-examples of how the premises you've given don't necessarily lead to the conclusion you've reached.
But let's assume that you are correct. South Africa is a resource-rich country with good ports. How come economics doesn't "favor industry controlled by" South Africa, while it will favor Mars that way?
Kenneth Burke gives an example of gradatio, a rhetorical technique: "Who controls Berlin, controls Germany; who controls Germany controls Europe; who controls Europe controls the world". That construct is well-enough known that a Google search for "who controls * controls the world" finds dozens of different examples in the first few pages of hits. Here's a baker's dozen of them:
- He who controls food, controls the world
- He who controls information, controls the world.
- Who controls the moon controls the World
- Whoever Controls Princess Diana, Controls the World
- He who controls the water controls the world
- Who controls Eurasia, controls the world
- He who controls the internet controls the world
- He who controls the branding controls the world
- Who controls money, controls the world
- who controls Jerusalem controls the world's memory.
- He who controls the calendar, controls the world
- he who controls the seas controls the world
- The person who controls the oil controls the world
Your argument so far is essentially "Who controls Mars controls the industry of the Solar System." I believe that's highly speculative and not reasonable.
I can be wrong. How is it likely that Mars will be the center of industry within the next, say, 200 years? What is the process of getting to that point?
You suggest that it's easier access to "most of the resources in the Solar System". How does the economics of that work out? And I don't just mean nickel mining of asteroids, since there's plenty of historical examples - again, South Africa - where raw ore extraction does not lead to overall market control.
Uh, no. You posited a kind of analysis based on the analogy (implied by your invocation of various examples) and I poked a hole in it. Now you are trying to pass it off as mine. No analogies are required. Just look at energy/transportation costs.
I don't know if that was some kind of inefficient reverse-troll or an honest mistake.
> Your argument so far is essentially "Who controls Mars controls the industry of the Solar System."
...based on energy/transportation costs. You seem to have missed that there, then substituted a lot of fluffy logic in its place.
How do energy/transportation costs make Mars the natural industrial hub of the Solar System? You have made a hypothesis, now justify it.
I can come up with no scenario where that's possible in the next 200 years. Indeed, the only way I can do it is to have a sizable population on Mars first, so it builds upon its own internal economy rather than through any sort of trade. It's expensive to get people from Earth to Mars, and there needs to be a big enough population to be self-supporting, even in terms of education and training, so we're talking generations to get to that point.
And if we can put a nucleus of 10,000 people on Mars, to start that colony, then we'll have developed Earth-to-orbit technologies a lot better than we have now.
The explanation you gave - "based on energy/transportation costs" - has not a good predictor of industrial control in world history. Why should it be a given in the Solar System's future history? What is the essential difference between space and ground?
At the very least, you have to show that life-support costs do not dominate the equation. Why wouldn't we have automated mines on Mars, with at most a skeleton oversight crew? Why is it economically more feasible to have a self-supporting colony instead?
Over and over again, in reading about asteroid mining and Lunar and Martian colonization, the answer I read is at best "we have no idea if it's economically feasible" and more often "not economically feasible". While you posit that the answer is obviously weighted in favor of Mars, and not in need of further explanation.
Give me at least a vaguely reasonable scenario for how Mars becomes the natural industrial hub of the Solar System. Otherwise you're handwaving your religion at me.
And for any argument you give, explain why the Moon isn't a better choice.
> And if we can put a nucleus of 10,000 people on Mars, to start that colony, then we'll have developed Earth-to-orbit technologies a lot better than we have now.
If your argument depends on this, it is already flawed.
> The explanation you gave - "based on energy/transportation costs" - has not a good predictor of industrial control in world history.
Actually, it was quite a good predictor up to the earlier part of the industrial revolution. It does a nice job of explaining where the industrial centers of the northeastern US appeared. Technologies developed in the industrial revolution are the very ones that changed this situation.
> ...the answer is obviously weighted in favor of Mars
Read The Case for Mars. I don't have the time or desire to discuss this with you in particular.
