Carrying on,

   not everything is steel and electricity!

  • Is it possible to find other useful ores at a site that benefits from a superb iron ore?

  • Yes, most definitely, and not by lucky chance:

  • The formation processes of entire rocky planets (like Earth and Mars), and iron ores themselves  act in ways that tend to mix iron ores in close proximity with other highly useful resources.

Mars has few locations with substantial surface iron ore resources. However, its one very large iron ore location, IRoM (the Iron Region of Meridiani (planum)), has source, soft sedimentary rock, IRoM rock, that is full of iron ore, water, and several other useful ores, IRoM rock is a multi-ore.
With bountiful electricity (and even more bountiful by-product thermal power from concentrated solar electricity generation), the additional ores in IRoM rock can be readily processed into manufacturing and construction materials that can be used to build a science station. The Stage 2 diagram below provides a flow overview of how to use the multi-ore to expand on the foundation-laying Stage 0 and Stage 1 steel & electricity processes.


With Stage 2 processing, almost none (<1%) of the mass of the objects required to make, build, and run a Martian science station needs to be transported from Earth. This can vastly lower the cost of establishing a station on Mars and put Two Planet Steel at the center of the next era of exploration.

A blossoming science station with the benefit of two or more years of Stage 2 processing, manufacturing, and construction will be a spectacular, safe, and infrastructure-rich base for landing the first humans on Mars. These early explorers will be able to take exciting drives across hundreds of miles of terrain, and they will be in an excellent position to make the drilling equipment and begin drilling for the National Academies’ deep-drill project to search for life in warm, underground liquid water.

And Stage 2 can be upgraded to Stage 3, which starts producing high-purity silicon chips for locally made solar panels, aluminum and plastic products, and agriculture for food and plant-based materials production (starting agriculture requires a big decision that has not yet been made by anyone).
If you are a party interested in the future of Mars (from government, academia, or capital investment), and you would like to know more about how sedimentary IRoM rock can be processed into materials and made into useful products and used for construction, email founder@twoplanetsteel.com with “interested party” in the subject line (access to relevant information will not be equal).