>>11941412You didn't get it. You confuse extracting ore/gasses with actually using it,
That's why you missed the reason I brought up dry ice, radioactivity or temperature. Read it again, it was NOT a comparison it was a reminder of how complex even the basic are. You won't be expanding your habitable area with IRSU before you have complete industry chain.
Power source is the one aspect we will have the least trouble with, it's self-contained the input is simple and the fundamental won't change. External factor like pressure, temperature or dust, can be tested on Earth before risking human life. You will not discovers some kind of "Mars petrol" and work out the trick to refine and burn it using starship scavenged part.
The point of life-support/hydroponic system is to consume as little external ingredient as possible, the best place to test it would be in orbit to fix the errors when you are a shuttle away. The ideal would be a closed life-support.
Locating and extracting Mars resources will be the least complex part, it is a matter of probes, money and basic chemistry.
The hardest part is to learn how to build an efficient infrastructure, live there and repair every single part of it without a Earth-like atmosphere, air/water for washing, or spare part delivered in 24 hours.
This part is the 90% we don't know, Mars will just make it harder and slower to learn the same.
The Moon with a vacuum, 0.16G and conditions that stay constant for days before switching is likely the best and most rewarding place to learn.
But his is not just what you'll learn, everything you'll build for the Moon (like space dock) are also PREREQUISITE for any proper colonization of basically anywhere else, Phobos/Deimos or Mars.
>we'll have to throw out 90% of it and start again with the version for Mars. You couldn't even get right what those systems are.
>Even engineers know this shit....making them far above you, because THEY think about the practical aspect.
