Sending anything to Mars is expensive. Sending a machine capable of drilling to the required depths to find subsurface water would be prohibitively expensive with current rocket payload limits.
There are also far more accessible sources of water on the surface - lakes of ice in craters, water rich minerals, and even an equatorial frozen sea .
There is also water at the surface of Mars on the poles, but the conditions here are much harsher than nearer the equator, and there is less sunlight, reducing the capability of any solar powered rover.
The subsurface water is not necessarily that far below the surface, but it is also not a torrent; more likely trapped as ice particles in between the rock or in secondary minerals.
No comments:
Post a Comment