[dreamcompiler]

There's no wood on Mars. A great deal of our infrastructure (not just Amish infrastructure) is wood-based, and the first Martians will have to find a substitute for it. The typical substitute for wood is plastic, but that comes from petroleum, and there's none of that on Mars either. I suppose one of the first things we'll have to build on Mars is greenhouses -- not just for food, but for plant-based plastic to build things with.

[stcredzero]

The typical substitute for wood is plastic, but that comes from petroleum, and there's none of that on Mars either.

This was covered in Zubrin's The Case for Mars. With the input of some hydrogen and some energy, you can source feedstock for plastics from Mars' atmosphere. For example, ethylene:

http://pioneerastro.com/Team/RZubrin/Mars_In-Situ_Resource_U...

[moron4hire]

Except Mars' atmosphere is more akin to a vacuum than most industrial vacuum processes.

[stcredzero]

That's because most industrial vacuum processes happen in the 15 psi context of conditions on Earth. We already know that the Sabatier process will work in Mars like conditions. The chemistry has been around for a century, and demonstration hardware specifically for Mars conditions was built over a decade ago.

[TeMPOraL]

Will work != will have enough output to be useful. I'm hopeful, but honestly, I haven't seen any decent estimates. Anyone has a link to such?

[stcredzero]

This thread seems to suggest that the big barrier is energy. The reason why natural gas and petroleum are used as feedstocks for the manufacture of plastic on earth is precisely because using them reduces the required energy input. The thread is also a good source of a few interesting links.

http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6970

In terms of having enough output from a material standpoint, the requirement is still mostly energy. It would require a lot of energy to move enough CO2 through the plant.

[NortySpock]

Bamboo is a commonly proposed Mars substitute. Grows like a weed.

[sametmax]

Since there are nutriments and water (even solidified) on mars, the biggest problem is really energy. If you have energy, you can make greenhouses fir fast growing plants such as bamboo and hemps, that we know how to turn into clothing, building materials, and many other things.

[khuey]

Or we'll just make a lot more things out of metal.

[erik]

I wonder how useful martian soil is for making glass or ceramics.

[jdironman]

I'm curious. What happens when one starts a fire on mars to forge a metal?

We can't ship metal, it's much to heavy. So we have to consider that beneath the fine powdery surface of mars there lies basalt rock. Is there a type of concrete that can be constructed from basalt material?

[pjc50]

Well, you can't start a fire in the atmosphere. So either you have one inside, or (more likely) you'd use induction heating to do the forging.

Concrete requires some rather specific calcium chemistry. But basalt is quite a good building material on its own, especially if you adopt Inca building techniques of mortarless flat-surface construction. Then all you'd need to do is construct interior insulating airtight shells to live in.

There's plenty of iron on the red planet, and from the red dust comes oxygen. Nitrogen will be harder to obtain.

[wycx]

You still need heat, but you can make fiber from basalt:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basalt_fiber

Among other things its used to make a type of rebar.