During the time that robotic missions are and have been the visitors to Mars from Earth, the data flow is and has been relatively limited. Over sometimes years of time, the missions have slowly gathered and transmitted the data back to Earth, where the data have been received, stored, and used. The total data so far amounts to about two terabytes (i.e., about two million million bytes) with images accounting for the majority of the data. When people are among the visitors to Mars, the amount of data will jump dramatically. The people will be generating data passively and actively by their routine living (example: life support), by voluntary choices (example: a diary), by observations (example: automated weather station), by assignments (example: documenting a field trip), by interactions (example: informing, planning, or directing), and by operating equipment (example: drilling into Mars). The data will be captured and communicated in many forms and many ways, and will have to be stored, often indefinitely. The storage will require having security provisions of several types, and backups. To be useful, the wanted stored data will have to be selectively found or located, then retrieved or accessed, and then communicated, before they can be provided in usable forms either to people or to equipment or both. All of these activities will involve some technical resource considerations and some personnel skill availabilities.

Since the human-on-Mars presence will be an effectively paperless presence with non-Earthlike restrictions on communication, how are all these data requirements to be met? On Mars, the cost per kilogram and per cubic meter of equipment is extremely high, and there will be no manufacturing capability, spare parts availability, or sophisticated repair services available for a long time. Environmental hazards will be significant, such as gritty dust and hard radiation. Each person on Mars will probably generate indirectly and directly an average of about three terabytes of data per Martian year. How are we going to handle these data effectively on Mars? Ten procedures are likely.

Computer and Communications Infrastructure