Edward: Actually a second region, Nili Fossae, is located adjacent to glacier country in the north, and in fact appears to the richest so far found on Mars. See:

Mining country on Mars?

As you can see by the overview map at the link, Nili Fossae is located just to the south of Nilosyrtis Fossae, the easternmost mensae region of glacier country. A colony between the two would have access to both water ice and mineral resources.

Another disappointment is that many of these sites do not seem to be in the regions with the glaciers, but there are some mineral deposits in better locations for colonies. From your linked post: “However, south of the giant canyon Valles Marineris is a mineral region at about 30 to 40 degrees south latitude, to the northwest of Argyre Basin. This is also a region with a high concentration of glacial features. The two combined will likely make this region very valuable real estate.“

Edward: Orbital data has already given us a good preliminary survey of where the valuable minerals on Mars are located. See: A global map of Mars’ future mining regions

This is an excellent point. Mining will be very important, as it is the basic means of obtaining the insitu resources that the Martians will need. Water seems to be abundant in many locations, but other materials, such as metals, will have to be mined or painstakingly removed from the soil.

The mines would likely be outside of town, and it may not be cost effective to fly ore to the refineries. Treads or halftracks (wheels and treads) are a good way to go for transit of these heavy ores. If the distance is short enough, rails could be more cost efficient.

Water resources are necessary for any growing civilization, which is why so many earthly cities are located on coasts, rivers, or lakes. On Mars, other resources will likely drive colonial locations. Metal deposits, lava tubes for radiation protection for the towns and cities, subsurface water ice are three. The ice is widely available in certain latitudes, the lava tubes are scattered around, the metals are not yet known.

This could be an interesting next few decades.

A tracked vehicle will need to be used for all mining and “earth” moving. Then they can be used to move huge tonnages of material to closer processing plants. Like a train but without tracks or permanent roads. Just smoothed roadways.

Edward wrote: “An analogy with the early American Colonies, four hundred years ago, there were few roads between colonies, and they tended to remain fairly coastal or along navigable rivers. Travel between colonies was generally easier by boat or ship.”

Duh. How could I forget this simple fact. In Virginia especially, there were no roads at all for most of the first century, with almost all travel by boat.

New England developed roads sooner, but that was because the terrain did not provide as many navigable waterways.

Manpower, however, will be at a premium, so despite the simplicity and relatively low cost of Martian roadways, Martians may be reluctant to spend the manpower on their construction. For the first few decades or so, I expect that prepared roadways will only appear for the heaviest travelled routes. Roadways for heavy local travel but flight for anything with distance.

An analogy with the early American Colonies, four hundred years ago, there were few roads between colonies, and they tended to remain fairly coastal or along navigable rivers. Travel between colonies was generally easier by boat or ship.

If early colonies or settlements are built in lava tubes or are otherwise located underground then perhaps bored tubes would be preferred, as these would limit radiation exposure on the surface. Once again, shorter routes would be the more affordable construction, and for several decades flight would remain preferred for longer distance travel.

It always comes down to resources, resource management, and economics.

Ray Van Dune: Your points about helicopters are on the money. What I was really saying (and in which we are in agreement) is that point-to-point flight will be the main method for transport on Mars, for a very long time.

Retortip-jets (actually rockets) might be more effective, but the futility of evaluating the future of technologies on Mars reminds me of Bob Newhart’s comedy routine where he talks on the phone to the Wright Brothers: “You think someday it will fly people across the Atlantic?! Are you nuts? For one thing, where will you put the bathroom?!”

If in-situ propellant production proves effective I’ll bet that is used to power helos for short hauls, and rockets for longer flights. Propellants are only as heavy as how much you need, or as how much remains… batteries are always heavy, charged or not! Today’s batterie’s anyway!

Ray Van Dune: Considering the success of Ingenuity, I expect the Martian colonists will forego most road-building, and fly from point to point. Though preservation might be a minor factor, I expect the main reason will be cost and limited resources. Cheaper to build helicopters with no roads than rolling stock plus roads/tracks.

An interesting factor will be the degree to which environmental preservationism dominates Martian society. I could see a no-touch philosophy that would prevent anything but aerial transport, as opposed to the “slash through the forest” approach that dominated the settling of Earth.

Ray Van Dune: You and my readers might have noticed, but in my trolling of the MRO image archive, I have slowly been compiling a larger sense of the overall geography of Mars, with colonization in mind. This larger view is known by many Mars planetary scientists, but even they tend to be too focused on specific local questions so that they often miss the forest for the trees. As a non-scientist and historian, I am taking a different perspective on this research, and it is revealing a different view of Mars.

Ray Van Dune: The southern location of the first British colonies was driven partly by climate, but that was because this was beneficial to colonists. The equatorial location on Mars of all government rovers has had little to nothing to do with scouting for future colonies. Geology and science have been the main drivers to pick the sites.

The northern colonies that came later were almost all havens for religions refugees, Massachusetts for the Pilgrims and Puritans, Pennsylvania for the Quakers, Maryland for the Catholics, and Rhode Island for Roger Williams’ group. In fact, both the Pilgrims and Puritans were supposed to go to Virginia, but purposely went north to avoid that Royalist-controlled colony.

The reasons the northern colonies were more successful is exactly why I wrote Conscious Choice. Those reasons have almost nothing to do with location.