Sure, our ancestors (who could make their way and thrive in the wild) would probably consider me (who gets lost the moment I make a wrong right turn and depends on the local supermarket) a complete idiot, especially since I couldn't recreate any of the technology my daily life so depends on... But I've got central heating and clean tap-water, so I'm happy with the exchange.

The higher we climb the ladder of technological dependency, the more calamitous it becomes should we ever fall off. Best not to look down. (I think I'm supposed to bang rocks together to make fire, right?)

No kingdoms offered huge prizes for the first electric light, or the first antibiotic, the first radio, or the first computer. But geolocation has always been considered a big deal, and it arguably wasn't well and truly solved until the advent of satellite navigation. It'd be surprising if it weren't being planned for the next generation of Mars orbiters.

I wonder what the “useful minimum” for satellites would be if you wanted, say, relatively accurate positioning once every orbit or each day.

Almost all of the technologies that we would need for survival and productivity on Mars are recently-invented.