I’m about halfway through. How did they get so much mass to Mars?
IIRC, they’re using geosynchronous elevators (presumably on both planets), and I have a vague recollection that they may be synthesizing from native materials. Unfortunately, it’s been a long time since I read this series. I enjoyed it, but preferred The Years of Rice and Salt. Robinson does a good job of spinning out interpersonal issues across generations, but his characters always feel rather flat to me as psychological constructs.
Aren’t they iusing one of the moons for the orbital base, after bringing it into geosynchronous orbit? It’s been awhile since I read this series too. I really enjoyed it!
Not sure I understand the OP. The first 100 colonists came in a big-ass ship constructed mainly out of space shuttle fuel tanks, as you must have read by now.
Much of the gear they used for their original settlement, like the Rickover and their earth-moving equipment and other vehicles, was shipped separately.
And there’ve been subsequent launches of both personnel and materiel.
Yes, but they have tractors and trains and buildings covering craters and drills and tunnel making equipment. And more and more people who have to breathe and eat.
Like I also said, much of the equipment was shipped separately. In unmanned rockets launched from the Earth’s surface.
And a lot of it was built on Mars by robots and robotic factories. Mars has plenty of raw material of its own, you know, especially plenty of iron for making steel.
The space elevators weren’t built until later on in the series, IIRC.
John and Arkady are discussing them about 3/4 of the way through the book.
It was a great series that pulled me in.
But if I follow **carnivorousplant’**s thinking correctly I wholly agree: it seemed a tad unrealistic how quickly the original 100 colonists and the folks right after were up and running and welcoming company at advanced societal levelwith all kinds of equptment and crap. But it was barely believable to me – just stretched my credence a bit
Hey, we don’t know countless details that might affect the situation. Maybe fuel got a lot cheaper, suddenly making it practical to lift a lot more mass off of Earth even before the construction of the elevators.