[discussion] early mission structure

So, what will an early human mars mission look like?

I want to muse a bit about this:

• Human marsflight is expensive. The rocket equation means it’s exponentially more difficult the more acceleration/landing you do. That is why reaching mars is reachable with a single rocket, but returning with the same rocket requires fuel production on Mars to refill the rocket.
• Creating 1000 m³ of cryogenic fuel on Mars is really challenging and definitely not something that the first settlers will be able to pull off. Reasons include: Huge resource requirements, but more urgently, that all the cryogenic fuel has to be produced at once. If it is produced slowly, over the course of many months, then the cryogenic fuel warms up and evaporates before it can be used.
• Therefore i expect the first settlers to spend a longer time on Mars before they will be able to return. I’d like to assume they’d spend at least 10 years on Mars.
• So, what does their daily lifes look like?
• They need water, food, and electricity. I think it makes sense to produce electricity first (through solar panels because they offer the most average power per kg transported to mars), then water by baking regolith in a furnace (studies such as this one discuss this, the furnace needs electricity to work), then doing electrolysis of water to produce oxygen, then building greenhouses for food.
• It is better to deploy teams of 2 people to do each task. Alone, people become lonely and depressed, and there’s also an added security perspective when using 2 people for each task. When there’s an unexpected difficulty or malfunction that puts 1 person out of use (such as oxygen leaks that cause unconsciousness or accidents that knock somebody out), then the other person can immediately respond to that and acquire help.
• I propose early missions to consist of 8 people per ship. Assuming the ships have a carrying capacity of at least 80 t to Mars, that means a capacity of 10 t per person for supplies and devices. Split into pairs of 2, that makes 4 teams to do tasks. One team would need to provision electricity by expanding the solar park and maybe taking care of dust and other defects, one team would need to provide water by refilling the ovens with regolith, and another 2 teams can do other things, such as research into the martian landscape (areology, mineral mapping) or construction.

Let me hear from you! A community lives through its discussions.