[8as746fd4a5df]

My prediction is different from that. If humans make it to Mars and start setting up more than just a basic base then I predict that Mars is going to be a plastic planet for the forseeable future. -->Given enough energy<-- and that water and carbon dioxide make it easier to gather hydrogen, carbon and oxygen than other elements makes it very attractive to produce as much as possible from plastics.

[bryanlarsen]

Agreed. If colonized using the SpaceX Starship plan, there are going to be massive factories producing methane. Making those factories slightly larger to produce feedstock for plastic will probably be a lot cheaper than growing bamboo.

[vineyardmike]

Part of the articles point is that for furniture getting plastic in the right shape would be hard. Sure you can use a 3D printer but furniture is massive. You can make a mold… but with what?

[traverseda]

Heat welding plastic sheets should be a lot easier to work with than wicker. Wicker is very labor intensive unless there's something I'm missing.

On earth we just make a mold when we want to make something out of plastic, but on mars it would make sense to have one mold for some kind of plastic sheet (perforated?) that we can thermoform by hand with a heat gun, heat weld together, etc.

[kbelder]

Or just cast something like large LEGO.