Re:Elon Musk provides new details on his ‘mind blowing’ miss...
by gpm on Saturday June 11, 2016 @10:43AM
(#11883598)
Well, easy compared to anywhere else we can go.
We aren't really looking for liquid water [0], as you say that evaporates pretty much instantaneously. Rather we are looking for ice, the pheonix lander confirmed the that this exists naturally on mars [1]. In the worst case water bound to the soil that can be baked out [2].
As for the atmosphere being stripped away, that's not really a concern on time scales humans care about. Though I've heard people talk about setting up a artificial magnet field to reduce the amount of radiation you receive, which should also prevent this.
[0] Well we are, but as a scientific curiosity not as a way to sustain a colony.
We aren't really looking for liquid water [0], as you say that evaporates pretty much instantaneously. Rather we are looking for ice, the pheonix lander confirmed the that this exists naturally on mars [1]. In the worst case water bound to the soil that can be baked out [2].
As for the atmosphere being stripped away, that's not really a concern on time scales humans care about. Though I've heard people talk about setting up a artificial magnet field to reduce the amount of radiation you receive, which should also prevent this.
[0] Well we are, but as a scientific curiosity not as a way to sustain a colony.
[1] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/news/phoenix-20080...
[2] http://www.space.com/22949-mars-water-discovery-curiosity-ro...