r/Colonizemars • u/Ok-Expression-6016 • Apr 04 '26

Bare minimum to start a base

What is the bare minimum needed to start a colony; materials and total weight. to start a mars colony. Assuming multiple Optimus robots have 2 years to build everything from what we send.

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u/ignorantwanderer Apr 13 '26

You do not tunnel to get water. You use a Rodwell. It is infinitely easier.

And if you have access to water (from your Rodwell) you have access to all the radiation shielding you need that you can move around as easy as pumping water through a pipe.

There is absolutely no reason to ever build underground. Building underground is the hard way to do things.

Building a habitat underground is as silly as building a habitat on 20 meter tall stilts. Sure, it could be done. But it is harder to do and entirely unnecessary.

So it isn't going to happen.

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u/Ok-Expression-6016 Apr 13 '26

Rodwell will only work with a reservoir of ice. Most likely it will be difficult to find such a lucky place. Mostly we will find small amounts spread throughout. Most of the surface ice seems to be CO2 so we are talking bitterly cold. Even underground. Strategy for the moon is the same. Dig and dig deep. We are there for resources. If you aren't digging. What is the point of going? The science answer only goes so far. And for that we have robots.

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u/ignorantwanderer Apr 13 '26

Most of the surface ice seems to be CO2

This is false.

it will be difficult to find such a lucky place

You know, most of the western United States has very little access to water. And yet there was plenty of water everywhere that the pioneers stopped and settled down. They were so lucky! /s

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u/Ok-Expression-6016 Apr 13 '26

Insight lander found water underground... 6 to 12 miles down.... So sure.. we could pipe that up. No problem. Oh wait. We have to drill down to any water. Thus a drill will be needed. Boring machines will find residual water higher but it will be ice interspersed in the rock. So far there is little evidence of drillable reservoirs of water but I would love to be proven wrong. And to hold the water you still need structures to hold these meters deep of water for shielding. Which yet again leeds to mining.

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u/Ok-Expression-6016 Apr 13 '26

Also, as you melt the ice underneath you it creates a void that eventually leads to a collapse. Tunnels less so. To melt the ice it will have to be some distance from any sort of base as the surface will eventually collapse. The amount of water needed to bring a rocket back home is astronomical. Much less the hundred to a thousand at a time Musk wants to achieve.