Martian Exploration and Exploitation

How China, the United States, India, or the European Union go about exploring Mars, assuming that they do, remains to be seen, but the obvious choice would seem to be with humanoid robots.

The simplest mission would likely require three ships. One to carry a nuclear power plant, the second to carry an artificial intelligence system (AI) plus an automated system for the analysis of rock and soil samples, the third to carry a stack of humanoid robots, plus various tools including a drilling rig and one or serveral buggies for operations far from the landing site.

The robots, equipped with visual and auditory sensing systems, and controlled wirelessly by the AI, would explore the planetary surface, collecting soil and rock samples, and using the drilling rig to explore for sub-surface water or ice and other resources. Soil and rock samples, and any samples of water or ice extracted from drill holes would be returned to the landing site for analysis.

Beyond that, if the sampling mission revealed the existence of potentially economic resources such as uranium, gold, or diamonds, more detailed surveys in the most promising areas might be undertaken. Depending on survey results, the mission might be followed by missions for industrial scale extraction of resources for return to earth with or without local processing.

Besides resource extraction, Mars would seem to have little to justify further investment, unless it were to be developed as a tourist destination. For ten- or twenty-million-dollar a seat, Elon Musk might well be ready to ferry tourists to the Red Planet, a price that many of the super rich would likely think reasonable for a trip of a life-time. In that case, some billionaire entrepreneur would surely build the first Martian resort hotel, with pressurized rooms, and five star catering, albeit with room rates that would make the Paris Ritz or Mumbai's Taj Mahal Palace seem cheap by comparison.

In the hotel lobby, Enterprise Mobility would presumably have a desk where guests could rent a Tesla Mars rover, while at other desks guests could rent space suits and book guided hikes including, presumably, an arduous scramble to the top of Olympus Mons, the highest peak in the solar system.