Lots of Ice On Mars

Total Recall writes: "The Mars Odyssey spacecraft is finding large amounts of hydrogen in the southern hemisphere of Mars. This strongly indicates the presence of water ice (since H2O is both common and very stable). The data samples about the upper meter or so of the Martian surface. This apparently extends from the south polar cap up to about 60 south latitude. It suggests a permafrost of mixed ice and dirt."

Comments

Re:Mars as a refueling station ?

[Soft]

If there's H3 on Mars, however, the spacecraft only has to carry enough fuel to go TO Mars, and then get refuel there to come home.

It is unlikely that you can find tritium (H3) anywhere, it decays in a few years or decades. Perhaps you mean helium-3, and suppose that we have a He3-powered fusion-drive spaceship?

Anyway, we already have chemical rockets, for which water can be quite interesting (hydrogen-oxygen).

One more thought - if there's plenty of ice leftover, then Mars could be used as a "refueling station" for space flight further away than Mars.

Perhaps. But Mars isn't that small a planet, so mining near-Earth asteroids would probably be cheaper.

Re:Mars as a refueling station ?

[ivanthered]

Oxygen is a actually a rather good propellant too, _if_ you use nuclear propulsion, which is the only sensible propulsion system for human spaceflight anyway.
The NERVA rocket prototyped in the 1960s would have had enough power to propel a spaceship to mars in a matter of _weeks_, not years.
And the propellent is disjunct from the energy-source in this design, so you can use whatever you happen to find.

So, cudos for NASA to resume research in this directions, and
*/flame
Eat flaming death, No-Nukes_In_Space-Activists!
*/flame

Re:Well this changes everything ....

[The Evil Beaver]

Yes, and with the Fe all over, set up roving factories to scoop up, filter, and create iron ingots. This should cause some greenhouse emissions, I believe, and a number of other gasses, I believe including steam, would help in the creation of an atmosphere.

What would really be interesting, though, would be how the Martian cities are in Cowboy Bebop. Though, I don't think that such a plan is really workable. It would be simpler and less expensive (in terms of more than just money) to terraform the entire planet.

Before Mars is terraformed, however, someone should be sent out to check the Pyramid, ruins, and other features of that area.

Re:Somewhat Interesting

[Skyshadow]

Might not be a good idea to drink the water until we find out for sure.

Well, liquid water is probably way below the surface if it exists at all. Everything else is probably ice.

Besides that, though, I wouldn't worry too much -- bacteria has to evolve to both take particular advantage of a host and to overcome that host's immune system. Even if you subscribe to the idea that terrestrial life may have traveled to Earth from Mars, chances are that even a Martian "cold" wouldn't be adaptible to modern humanity. There's just to big of an evolutionary gap.

But yeah, I'll admit that I think I'd still take a look under a microscope first if my drinking water hadn't been purified or manufactured.

No it didn't

[Goonie]

The nuclear thermal rocket is considerably better than any chemical rocket, but it's not nearly good enough to allow you to take a non-ballistic trajectory to Mars. What it *does* do is let you carry a lot less propellant, so you can carry more other stuff (like people, supplies, and equipment).

To do the weeks instead of months thing, you need something more exotic again, like an Orion (push the craft along by exploding nuclear weapons behind it), a fusion drive, or maybe a laser-powered light sail (though presumably you need a laser on Mars to slow it down again . . . ).

Ok let's stop looking for water for a bit

[LazyDawg]

When you are growing plants, you need to have nitrogen all around in the soil and air or not much will get produced. Where are we going to be getting this vital chemical for life on other planets? Importing huge tanks of nitrogen from Earth limits the size of our hermetic domes, and greatly increases maintenance costs.

Is there enough nitrogen in the Martian atmosphere or soil, or will we have to import it?

Re:Now we know where to land

[rben]

Actually, once you are in orbit, you are about half-way to anywhere in the solar system. If I remember correctly, the minimum energy orbit to get to Mars is actually less than that to get to the Moon. It's a long flight though, 18 months, I think. That's also only if the Earth and Mars are in the right orientation, which I think happens only about once every three years, so you need to stay on the surface for another year and a half before heading back.

There are already designs for missions that involve manufacturing the fuel for the return mission using materials on Mars. It's reasonably easy to manufacture Methane on the surface. You just need Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen, so if water is there and you can get to it easily, making methane to power a return trip should be easy. Just use the water for Hydrogen and Oxygen and the atmosphere for the Carbon. (Actually you could probably get oxygen from the soil, too, since it's got a lot of oxidized iron, also known as rust, in it.)

The biggest concern that I would have for a Mars mission is the toll it would take on the astronauts. It's a long trip with relatively high radiation. (You can only carry so much shielding.) Unless the crew module is spun to provide some artificial gravity, it's likely that the astronauts would be in pretty bad shape before they even got to Mars. Though there have been some very long stays in space stations, those guys weren't exactly fit for a night of clubbing when they got home.

All that said, I'd go in second! I, uh, just got to get permission from my girl friend first ...

Re:Explanation of Asteroid Belt

[Royster]

you can find out how this validates the theory that Mars was once the satellite of the planet that formed the asteroid belt when it broke up for unknown reasons.

The big problems with such a theory are that the asteroids are not made of material which has undergone differentiation. When a large planet forms, the heat generted by brining all of the material together melts it. It then undergoes a process of differentiation with heavier metals, like iron, forming a core and lighter materials, like those in the Earth's crust, rising to the surface. From spectroscopic analysis, it seems that the asteroids are completely undifferentiated.

So, a seemingly attractive theory such as the demise of a planet (and what would generate enough energy to blow it up?) fails to have much of a basis when you bring some real science to bear.