Today, I will speculate on a relatively fringe, but possibly effective way to actually make Mars conquest interesting.
Load them up on a rocket, drive for 6 months at 60,000 kph, and dump gold bars on Mars.
Like Satoshi Nakamoto created artificial digital scarcity in Bitcoin, which has proven a good thing, this is the ultimate way to create an artificial physical scarcity of gold.
Say, if that was my job, I think it would make me excited for the future.
Also, it would be good for geopolitics and geoeconomics. I suffice.
Let’s dive in.
Flesh out this monster.
The Maths
Rocket and Payload
There are only about 244,000 metric tons of gold on Earth.
According to SpaceX, once Starship is operational it will be able to take a 100-ton payload to Mars.
Ok.
What one thing would we care about so much if it was taken to Mars?
Why gold. Of course.
Currently, 1 ton is worth $55 million.
So, 100 tons would be worth $5.5 billion.
Starship costs $100 million to build and launch into orbit. Flamboyant promises by Musk notwithstanding, let’s say $500 million for a one-way trip to Mars.
(Maybe after we have a decent Martian colony habitat a century+ from now, we can have a two-way trip for Starship).
The ROI here makes sense.
Spend $500 million to move $5.5 billion.
Not bad.
Gold Supply Shock Economics
2440 launches later, there will be no gold on Earth.
And the only way to get gold will be to colonize Mars.
Hurray, Elon just made ya’ll care about the Mars conquest.
Before I continue, who will buy this gold for SpaceX to send to Mars?
I have no such money.
I see a hand.
US Government? Yes? How much will you give us?
No? You’re broke too?
Uuh .. how about you, Bitcoiners?
We need nearly $20 Trillion in case anybody wasn’t counting, or Googling.
And with such a scheme, expect the price of gold to jump dramatically with every 100 tons bought and dumped on Mars.
(I hope SpaceX won’t lose our gold somewhere in outer space.
Let’s assume they won’t.
We gotta stay positive and optimistic here).
Know what, the supply shock may well push the price to $200 Trillion for all that gold by the time we are through.
“Wait, could that pay back all US debt, Japan’s debt, all debt?!”
“Well, I guess. But the gold is going to Mars so how do you pay back the debt?”
Economist: “I suppose you’re looking at how each nation would have their gold valued more over time, that even if it is little, it manages to pay back their debt burdens.”
Mathematician: “He means dGold/dtime is a positive function of time, albeit not linear but exponential.”
For example, the USA has ~ 3400 tons of gold at Fort Knox.
And $35 Trillion in debt.
At 50x (assumed average ~ half maximum value), the value over the course of the dumping + supply shock price appreciation, that gold would be worth:
3400 * 50 * $55million = $9.3 Trillion.
It’s not enough?
Social Consequences
The first rocket alone might be enough to make humans behave very differently towards gold.
So, throw away the mathematics.
Gold’s price will skyrocket, and people will start hoarding it like a vice on steroids.
The price will 10x.
I swear it.
Just like that!
(Evil Satisfied laugh).
I’m a fudging genius.
I just 10xd gold almost free of charge.
Because value, above all else, is a psychological phenomenon.
We all saw millions of people suddenly value something formerly non-existent – the $TRUMP coin – as their Iives depended on it.
People need games of value to keep going forward. They need new things to value greatly.
They’ll value their gold greatly. For fear of it being sent off to Mars.
‘Our poor gold’, they’ll say.
(BTW won’t it become radioactive or something? I read that Mars has a very thin atmosphere so it is bombarded by many cosmic rays).
Men will start hiding gold under the ground in their basements, and whoever has no gun will go buy one.
Women with golden necklaces, earrings, and wedding rings, will start strutting around like little celebrities even more.
A lot of people in their prime will start getting married. It’s a courageous thing these days, marriage.
Becoming bigger fans of gold will make people as courageous as a Spanish Conquistador.
Meanwhile, the OG gold bugs will start roaring ‘Nooo’ on social media.
And the inner gold bug in all of us will be uncomfortable.
However, it is better than Elon’s plan.
Barron Trump is not looking keen either.
I even see Michael Saylor signing up.
It’s like a whole new Me-too movement. No offense.
While sending a human being to Mars will be entertaining (until they die or something goes horribly wrong.
Watch this heartbreaking movie to see possible wrong goings), it looks utterly useless.
With no return on investment.
Elon Musk may be a genius but he hasn’t thought enough about how to actually get humans interested in Mars.
My idea works better.
Seriously think about it.
Use ChatGPT, Apple’s Vision Pro, the Frontier Supercomputer, or anything to help you imagine this idea properly.
Send gold to Mars first.
In about 50 years’ time, humans will follow.
Coz they want their gold dammit.
And no humans might die. Cojones.
Political Consequences
If President Donald Trump does this, I swear, the war in Ukraine will be over.
Coz Putin will be shocked and challenged beyond words.
If you think Putin fears Trump now, let Trump do this.
He once said nobody can stop Bitcoin.
He will say nobody can stop Trump.
Meanwhile, a lot of people will start to love Trump for his super presidential genius but also hate him for having such big cojones.
Seriously, it would be incredible.
Geoeconomics and Bitcoin
Put gold on Mars and Bitcoin’s price will go up, will go up, will go up up uuuuuup.
(Cue the music)
How ’bout that.
Bitcoin will lobby for more gold to go to Mars.
Bitcoiners beef gold.
Some (Saif) even fear governments might go back to a gold standard if Bitcoin fails.
Now, not anymore.
Ya’ll be stuck with the Bitcoin, baby.
Oh no.
Peter Schiff might cry his eyes out.
And he will have to settle for digital gold a.k.a…
***
Geoeconomics will be affected too.
South Africa will become extremely important again. Because it contains massive gold deposits still waiting to be unearthed.
Since we cannot use slaves or poor-quality labor for our Mars Gold Dumping Scheme, we shall have to use Elon’s Optimus robots. Powered by South Africa’s nuclear power plants.
(First time I might not hate these robots. They’ll actually have a real utility).
Wait, Russia also has massive gold deposits and is a major gold producer.
Yeah, so instead of accepting defeat like Brezhnev in 1969, Putin will ensure he sends Russian gold to Mars and that a robot plants a Russian flag on it.
(Btw to avoid it being scattered all over the Martian surface, it might be helpful to melt and fuse the gold into one giant blob.
Those Mars rovers will have a lot of work to do.
Sounds like a fun game 🎮 to play from Earth, right?
Forget Diablo, this is the cake).
Whoever has gold will try to keep it though, not send it to Mars. It’s not cheap spending $500 million and putting gold bars in the payload adds to the cost.
Also, why spend $ 500 million when you could charge 10x to whoever wants to send the gold to Mars?
It will be an interesting tension between sending the gold to Mars and keeping it here.
Hence $$$$ negotiations.
I see lawyers smiling.
But like I said, it won’t be on Mars forever. It will simply be next door.
End Note — Gold’s Intrinsic Value
Gold is used to do all the following things, other than speculate on its monetary or asset value (Source – Wikipedia):
1. Gold can be hammered into a semi-transparent sheet of a few atoms’ thickness, useful as an infrared shield in the visors of heat-resistant suits and in sun visors for spacesuits.
2. Gold is a good conductor of heat hence it is used as heat dissipation material.
3. Gold is a good conductor of electricity, and because it is also a good conductor (hence dissipator) of heat that doesn’t react with Oxygen, it is commonly used to coat most microprocessor chips.
4. Gold is also used to fabricate corrosion-free electrical connectors in computers and electrical devices. Each mobile phone contains about 50mg of gold, and with billions of phones shipping every year, that is multiple billions of dollars spent every year.
(So, if we dump gold on Mars, smartphones will become more expensive.
Ouch.
Yeah, you will be hated.
Me? I wasn’t even in the room.
Note: At 50mg per smartphone, 100 tons dumped = 500 billion smartphones that cannot be manufactured!)
5. Gold is used in some medicines that treat rheumatoid arthritis. That is, gold sodium thiomalate and auranofin
6. Gold is used for making cranberry glass.
7. Gold is used in minute quantities as a food additive in some cuisines (it goes through the body unaltered).
8. Gold plays a key role in the operation of the scanning electron microscope.
