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Water Discovery Is Good News For Mars Colonists

Posted by timothy on from the especially-the-thirstiest-ones dept.

astroengine writes "By now, we probably all know that there was once significant quantities of water on the Martian surface and, although the red planet is bone dry by terrestrial standards, water persists as ice just below the surface to this day. Now, according to a series of new papers published in the journal Science, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity has found that the Mars topsoil is laced with surprisingly high quantities of the wet stuff. And this could be good news for future Mars colonists. 'If you take a cubic foot of that soil you can basically get two pints of water out it — a couple of water bottles like you'd take to the gym, worth of water,' Curiosity scientist Laurie Leshin, of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, N.Y., told Discovery News."

7 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. That's a whole lot of dirt, but... by Penguinisto · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you couple it with water/fluid recycling techniques, you stand a good change of doing well.

    I find it strange that they would focus on just drinking water in the summary, when water will give you fuel and oxygen as well, and will likely be the greatest byproducts of this type of mining.

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  2. How much is that in shot glasses? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I thought since a certain missed orbital maneuver, people talking about Mars had agreed to only use metric...

    1. Re:How much is that in shot glasses? by Russ1642 · · Score: 5, Funny

      No. We agreed to use imperial only. Didn't we? Oh, shit! I have a phone call to make.

  3. Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Pint, quarts and gallons are US measurements. In my region, we use milk jugs. We added the conversion to water bottles for heathens outside the US who haven't been educated in how to properly measure liquid.

  4. Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym? by MiniMike · · Score: 5, Funny

    water bottles like you'd take to the gym

    These comparisons are ridiculous- how can we know the amount of water indicated without knowing which gym we're taking it to, or what kind of workout we'll be doing? Is it aerobics? Weightlifting? Spin class? Are we just pretending to work out while ogling attractive people? Treadmill? We would need different amounts of water for each of these! Please provide information in units we can actually use.

  5. Re:Great, let's send plants by seven+of+five · · Score: 5, Informative

    I take a lichen to that idea...

  6. Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym? by pla · · Score: 5, Funny

    Pint, quarts and gallons are US measurements. In my region, we use milk jugs. We added the conversion to water bottles for heathens outside the US who haven't been educated in how to properly measure liquid.

    Heathens??? Pot, meet kettle. All the "civilized" countries use metric nowadays - decijugs, centijugs, millijugs, and so on.

    / And the same units work for bra sizes, too!