The world is a mess, and politics are messing it up: wars, globalism, ecology. Instead of solving the world’s problems, preferably in a piecefull and democratic way, one could emigrate somewhere else and start from scratch. But where would you go?
To the Moon? Gravity is really low. There is no water. There is no atmosphere of any kind. Long nights that render solar panels useless.
To Mars then, as the rest of the solar system is unreachable anyhow.
So build a rocket to bring lots of people and lots of stuff to Mars, to terraform Mars. It should be a BIG rocket.
Is terraforming Mars realistic? Nah, IMHO. Solving Earth’s ecological problems seems much, much easier, if only dumb politicians weren’t blocking the road. You only need to install a fleet of BRIGID reactors. But what does Mars take?
You need to build the space rocket that is able to bring everyone back, once the Earth society has extinguished itself in cannibalism and wars. So make sure the rocket can land itself as a whole. Also, make sure you can generate the rocket fuel on Mars for the return journey.
This may take some time, like decades or more. In the mean time, construct a society on Mars in domes.
Inside such a dome, drive around in EV’s.
You’ll need electricity. Start small: power by solar panels at first, maybe set up small wind turbines later. But they both will need lots of maintenance.
Outside the domes, circumstances are harsh, with heavy sand storms. Do the maintenance using specialised robots and humanoid robots. They are more expendable than the humans on Mars.
In the area around the domes, humans and humanoids drive around in ruggedised electric pickup trucks. Flying around with heavy loads is not realistic on Mars. Drones can be done, passenger and cargo planes cannot. Do not invest in electric aircraft.
In time, sun and wind don’t promise on Mars. Storms and dust are lethal for solar panels and wind turbines. So power the domes with a nuclear reactor as they grow and as they start mining operations. This can only be a thorium fuelled MSR. It is transportable and safe to launch. It can be fuelled locally. It is maximally efficient, which is kind-a crucial on Mars.
Where are the domes to be located? Where there is water. Where there is thorium. Where the is nitrogen and carbon. So not all in one place, but far apart.
You cannot drive in an EV from one dome to another, and building roads and chargers along the way is madness. So make abstraction of the Mars surface and instead bore a tunnel from one dome to the next. The MSRs provide enough energy to do that. Use a high speed hyperloop transport inside the tunnels. Transport people, but most of all materials: water, thorium, carbon,…).
To stay in touch, and to not get lost, build a Mars-wide communications system. Best is to have a global and integrated telecom and navigation system, e.g. build a network of micro-satellites, and make sure the ground antenna is small and portable.
Using this Mars-wide internet, organise a social network, connecting everybody to everybody, offering a voting system, a pay system, an information system, a communication channel, a new channel, a medical database, a global ERP system,…
Use the social network to govern the entire community. Become a true world leader.
Don’t spent a huge effort on an unrealistic attempt to terraform Mars. Just sit out the mess on Earth, and migrate back when the dust is down, and re-boot the Earth using the Mars intelligence.
Finance the entire operation by selling the Earth-version prototypes of the critical components of the Mars society for big money by pitching the environmental dream story of EV’s, the cost effectiveness of the rockets, the freedom of speech idea of social networks, the tech advances of satellite comms, the boys-with-toys dreams about robots, etc. Don’t talk about the nuclear ideas before the minds are ready, that is still too soon. Or too essential for the entire project.
Get as much funding by hype-train politicians as possible. Buy an existing social network, or rather its user society, and set up the largest social experiment on human history, as a dry run for a Mars society. Do not nag about the cost of it, as the financial resources are so large the cost is completely irrelevant. And it’s revenues, for that matter. It’s the social experiment that is relevant.
The financial resources are so large because of short-term financial expectations and the way a stock exchange works, not because of revenues by creating relevant added value, as the real value of these technologies is for Mars, not for Earth.
So if you buy a EV to save the climate, you buy an overpriced car that is outperformed by any cheap combustion engine car in all aspects that make a car a useful machine, including ecological performance, and you are instead financing the future Mars society. You’d better buy a ticket to Mars.
Or use a BRIGID reactor fleet to solve the problems on Earth, right here and right now. It’s easier, a lot easier.
Either way, Mars or Earth, it will be an MSR reactor that makes the difference.