[Robotbeat]

> Before we can consider seeding terrestrial stations on Mars, we should consider seeding a communications net around Mars.

We already do.

> Once we have a half dozen satellites circling Mars...

We already have half a dozen active satellites circling Mars:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Mars_Odyssey

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

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

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

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

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

All of these (including the European satellites) except the Indian MOM orbiter contain a communications relay radio (for relaying from Mars surface to Earth) provided by NASA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electra_(radio)

We actually have quite a bit of infrastructure built up around Mars already. All these spacecraft are referred to as the "Mars fleet" (which is frakking awesome...).

[FLUX-YOU]

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electra_(radio)

>Data rates up to 1 Mbit/s

That's a bit of a problem. It only seems to be a relay for other spacecraft and small surface craft. Much more data will need to be exchanged between Earth/Mars when humans are involved (weather, video, entertainment, collected data, software, etc.)

You'd probably want several brand new satellites dedicated to communications for an initial colonial undertaking.

[trey-jones]

If you think about the initial communications infrastructure around North America when Columbus set sail in the 15th century, we've got a leg up.

I realize it's not the same situation, not the same expectations, a different world than 500+ years ago, but real progress doesn't happen in a cleanroom.

[DougWebb]

1 Mbit/s is a problem? This communication network we're currently using started out at just 300 b/s, 3000x lower bandwidth. When speeds got up to 2.4 Kb/s, it really started to take off.

The bandwidth back than was more than adequate to handle a website like Hacker News, and the store-and-forward protocols that were developed back then to preserve bandwidth, like SMTP and NNTP, will probably come back into play for a Mars/Earth link. Any video would need to be highly compressed and low quality by today's standards, but in the 50s and 60s TV was far lower quality than it is today and served its purpose just fine. Audio recordings for voice messages likely would be just fine without any quality reduction.

You have to remember that the initial colonists are going to necessarily be a fairly independent bunch. They're not going to need, or care, to keep up with the latest shows, music, or social media. They'll be too busy with surviving, collecting and transmitting scientific data, and writing letters to their loved-ones back on Earth.

[mikeash]

Once humans get involved, putting up a better communications satellite fleet should be trivial by comparison. You could almost just toss some satellites out the airlock before you start aerobraking. Obviously it would take a little more thought than that, but it certainly wouldn't be the hard part of the whole deal.

[Robotbeat]

MRO does 6Mbit/s.

But indeed, NASA intends much higher bandwidth for future missions using laser communications.

SpaceX would likely use a variant of their constellation satellites which should be capable of multiple Gbit/s using laser communications.