Transportation

Transportation infrastructure may be in colony and out of colony. The Spaceport is an important facility, part of the Mars settlement folklore.

Aerospace terminal-Spaceport

Spaceport with two landing and launch pads. Any number of arrangements would be possible. In this illustration the presence of a crater wall allows for a simplification of blast trench construction.

A spaceport may be required to handle the space traffic for the settlement.

Although the hot exhaust from the engines loses its power rapidly, rocks and pebbles thrown up by the launch might be dangerous for a very long distance. In particular, the low martian gravity lets ejected rocks move further than on Earth.

Precision landing may be more difficult than expected, so a well defined spaceport, as illustrated, may not be possible.

An explosion on the launch pad is a possibility that needs to be addressed by moving the spaceport away from the settlement.

Rail terminal

Vehicle parking

Vehicle maintenance

Exterior vehicle will require maintenance. Martian dust is fine and may damage quickly rotating parts so maintenance is bound to be required.

Maintenance facilities

Roadway

A settlement would need to build roads to reach resources and transport them using Rovers and wheeled vehicles.

However the roads might be dirt roads, since there is no asphalt on Mars. Concrete roads would be possible, but the requirement needs to clearly identified. Flat dirt roads can be used for high velocity travel. The lack of soil and water on Mars would mean the roads would be fairly easy to build and would last a log time, since there would be little erosion.

Some of the surface of Mars may be too hard to serve as a road directly. Damage to Mars rover wheels have shown that some of Mars' surface is made of sharp rocks. These areas would need to be modified, possibly broken into gravel for easy operation.

Automated ore hauler one a martian dirt road.

Railway

Traffic control

Tunnel