>>13387260>>13387262Prestige or ideals will definitely provide some incentive and some companies and individuals will definitely jump in at the opportunity. But tens or hundreds of millions isn't going to cut it. A Caterpillar haul truck will cost you 3.4 million dollars. Caterpillar is basically selling these units at or below cost. That is the absolute cheapest that they can make something with well optimized and mature technologies knowing that they'll be able to easily service it.
Now they need to develop electrically powered systems rated to get abused and beat to shit for years without critical repair, all the way on Mars.
Every industry will face similar issues.
>>13387276Stop being a dipshit. The furnace is only one part of steel mill. Minimills process existing scrap steel by conductively heating it in an arc furnace. With all the existing scrapyards on Mars, I'm sure they'll be running at full capacity. My buddy recently worked on building a steel mill in the southern US. It took a whole year with all the conveniences of Earth and 10,000 years of human experience building here. If it only took 10x as long on Mars, it'd still be a miracle.
>link relatedIt's what America used to make.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKqMp0sm7P8&t=17s 
