About Living on Mars
More than a year ago, after reading yet one more unrealistic description concerning what living on a Mars colony would be like, I began a serial on Kindle Vella I called Donald of Mars. The reason, to show just what living there might realistically be like.
There is no super technology providing quick fixes. You have to bury everything under the sand after building it for structural and radiation reasons. Almost 100% of the people there will be involved in producing food and other organics at least part-time and for nearly half of the population that will be their full-time job. Maintenance and construction will be the second largest employer. The building shell will mostly be built using remotes and robots, and the finishing of them done by hand by people once they have been pressurized.
The story assumes that the SpaceX starship model works, and the different countries quickly copy it and are launching missions of their own, so the colony is actually multinational and multi-cultural. Donald, my protagonist, was employed operating remotes mainly for bricklaying, with a large company, but when that contract ends after two years, he neither went back to earth nor renewed it. It is against this backdrop I go into the details of just what a person will have to do to live on Mars, and why so many are likely to fail and have to return the next window.
For one, you are going to have to spend hours in a gym every single day to make up for the low gravity or have health problems that mean you get shipped home That takes a lot of self-discipline and in all likelihood most that go there will not keep that up to the degree needed, and get sent back.
Everything is going to be in very short supply. As a result, your full-time job is just barely going to cover your minimum needs, calorie and housing. But people do not live by calories and housing alone. Everything extra is going to cost a lot. To buy more than that bare minimum, two jobs, working 80 hours weeks, or a job and a sideline will be the norm. There is no avoiding it, those shortages mean pay will be low compared to prices, and it is going to take a lot of hours worked to get anything.
Every room and hall are going to have a massive amount of plants in them, keeping the air fresh. This will be like living inside a densely packed green house that you are going to need to do maintenance on it nearly every day just to have a stable, livable environment, since you will not have a massive outside biosphere. But not only will you have to maintain it, those shortages will mean growing things in your apartment will be part of what pays for your buying what you need. Some will turn that, and turning what they grow into products, into their sideline. Making soap, wax twine, thread, paper, and on and on, will be profitable enterprises so nearly everything, plant, insect, fish, or other, you harvest from them can be sold, making up for some of those shortages.
My serial is trying to demonstrate how some people will deal with trying to do all, stay healthy, and interact with each other and with the different types of people from all over earth that are going to be there, all trying to do the same things. It will certainly not be exactly as my serial portrays. Some of it is certainly going to take a bit longer to get going than this story makes out, but is likely a lot closer than what most people are writing at this time. Though started on Kindle Vella I have continued it elsewhere since they closed. There are over 80 short episode now, though I have condensed the first 70 down into five episode chunks. Pick you which ever you like if you wish to see it.