Imagining Elon Musk’s Million-Person Mars Colony – Appendix A

by Marshall Brain

Appendix A

Restaurant Floor Plans

In Chapter 20, where a 1,000 person experimental city is proposed, one area of interest is the restaurants. If the goal is to feed 1,000 people, and if this is the only eating option for the 1,000 residents, what kind of restaurant space is needed to do that?

One possibility is to have one large, buffet style restaurant for the colony. This facility could get as fancy as the buffet seen at the Bellagio Hotel. A common, slightly more modest, buffet-style restarant in the U.S. is Golden Corral. Here is a typical floor plan:

Floor plan for a GC restaurant, seats 500, approximately 21,500 square feet [ref]

The alternative is to have multiple, smaller restaurants in order to provide variety in the dining options. Here is a 200-seat fast food restaurant:

Floor plan for a fast food restaurant, seats 200, approximately 10,000 square feet [ref]

Here is a smaller sit-down style restaurant that seats 80:

Floor plan for a sit-down style restaurant, seats 80, approximately 5,000 square feet [ref]

And a typical coffee shop:

Floor plan for a coffee shop, seats 50 inside, approximately 3,000 square feet [ref]

These examples give you an idea of different restaurant sizes and square footages when planning restaurant space for the colony.

Mars Colony Table of Contents

  • Preface
  • Chapter 1 – Elon Musk Makes His Big Announcement about the Mars Colony
  • Chapter 2 – The Many Thought Experiments that Mars Inspires
  • Chapter 3 – Why Do We Need a New Socio-Economic-Political System on Mars?
  • Chapter 4 – Imagining a New and Much Better Socio-Economic-Political System for the Mars Colony
  • Chapter 5 – What Happens When We Add a Massive Amount of Farm Automation to the Mars Colony?
  • Chapter 6 – How Will the Mars Colony Produce its Clothing?
  • Chapter 7 – How Will Housing Work for the Mars Colony?
  • Chapter 8 – How Will the Mars Colonists Construct Their Housing?
  • Chapter 9 – How do we provide other services like water, sanitation, police force, fire department, health care, etc. for the Mars Colony?
  • Chapter 10 – What might a typical “work week” look like on Mars? Who gets a free ride on Mars? Who will do the undesirable jobs on Mars?
  • Chapter 11 – What do we do with lazy people on Mars? What do we do with the assholes?
  • Chapter 12 – How would insurance work on Mars? Yes, insurance…
  • Chapter 13 – How will we make chips on Mars? Pharmaceuticals? Medical devices? “Stuff”? Will Mars be an actual backup plan for humanity?
  • Chapter 14 – What Will the Transportation System on Mars Look Like for Mars Colonists?
  • Chapter 15 – What will the political system look like? How will it be organized?
  • Chapter 16 – Building Experimental Cities on Earth Today to Find the Optimal Configuration for the Mars Colony
  • Chapter 17 – How can we apply the Mars colony’s principles to the billions of refugees and impoverished people on planet Earth today?
  • Chapter 18 – How will entertainment work on Mars? What types of entertainment will be available for Mars colonists?
  • Chapter 19 – How will children work on Mars? Who gets to have children? What is the colony’s stance toward children?
  • Chapter 20 – Starting the process of building experimental Mars colonies on Earth – Mars Colony Simulation 1000A
  • Chapter 21 – Can the economic system proposed for the Mars colony significantly improve the Welfare situation in the United States?
  • Chapter 22 – How much land will the Mars colony need?
  • Chapter 23 – Thought Experiment: What If Everyone Makes the Same Wage?
  • Chapter 24 – How Will Innovation Work on Mars?
  • Chapter 25 – Will there be advertising on Mars?
  • Chapter 26 – What should be the ultimate goal of the Mars colony?
  • Appendix A – Restaurants
  • Interviews with Marshall Brain on the Mars Colony:
  • See also:

[Feedback and suggestions on any part of this book are greatly appreciated. Contact information is here.]

The Official Site for Marshall Brain