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The Interplanetary Commerce
Mars is the best target for future colonization of the
solar system. It has goods that are rare on earth. Rare and expensive metals
could be found on Mars, but Mars also has five times more deuterium (heavy
isotope of hydrogen with one proton and one neutron). Deuterium can be
used now in fission power plants as a moderator and will be needed in fusion
power plants of the first and of the second generation.
Mars has another advantage: It's weak gravity. Because
of the weak gravity, less energy is needed to send an object into orbit.
This is especially helpful since the asteroid belt is close to Mars. The
asteroid belt contains an enormous amount of asteroids of all sizes. They
all contain water, rock, iron and rare and expensive metals like platinum,
nickel and others. It will be easier to send miners and their supplies
to the asteroid belt, so it will also be easier to export metals.
We could have a triangle trade like Britain, America
and the West Indies in the 18th century. Britain exported manufactured
goods to America, America exported craft goods and food to the West Indies
and the West Indies exported sugar and spices back to Britain.
Such a triangle trade could be made between Earth, Mars
and the Asteroids. Earth would export high technology to Mars, Mars would
export low tech goods and food to the asteroids, and the asteroids would
send metals back to earth. Everybody would profit from such a trade.
But the interplanetary commerce could go even further:
The four gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) have enormous amounts of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter is relatively nearby. Helium3 and deuterium could be exported from there to other parts of the solar system
These precious gases could also be burned in fusion reactors in Jupiter's stratosphere to reflect the energy in form of light to Jupiter's four big moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto). All but Io probably have vast amounts of water (Europa is not much bigger than Luna, but has more water then earth).
This means that they could be terraformed if they get more light and heat.
Mercury is about as big as our moon but has a gravity equivalent to Mars'. This is why it is thought that Mercury is full of heavy metals that could be exported.
Mercury also gets about ten times as much sunlight as earth, which means that energy could be won through solar collectors and perhaps exported.
Maybe mirrors could be built on Mercury and sent in an orbit close to the sun, in such a way that they reflect the light to the outer solar system, where it is scarce.
Asteroids could be reformed to create cities in which millions of people could live.
To reshape an asteroid to build a city, easiest is to empty it. The "garbage" would contain expensive metals, which could be sent to any place in the solar system.
The reshaped asteroid could be made to rotate, so that a reasonable gravity is produced. Fusion reactors or big solar collectors could produce the energy needed to produce enough light and heat.
One day, Venus might get terraformed (by setting mirrors in front of it, so that less sun light reaches the surface for example). Venus would be a second earth, where millions if not billions of people would like to settle.
Venus, too could have goods to export.
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