HyperKat Support and Tester Forum

Mars Challenger V1.0 => Mars General Discussion => Topic started by: Hooke on January 27, 2010, 12:04:08 PM

Title: Water on Mars
Post by: Hooke on January 27, 2010, 12:04:08 PM
Just watched a program on Nova/PBS from 2005 Called "Welcome to Mars"    It depicted the Spirit and Opportunity landings and investigations.

They did prove that water was on the surface, unfortunatley it was sulphuric acid.   There would have been no such thing as "clean" water and any liquids extracted would have be very hard to get clean water out of the mixture.   You would also be left with a high percentage of Sulfate Salts, which is what the surface of mars has for bedrock, large rocks made of volcanic rock with little round BB size spheres of Sulphate salts.

They called them blueberries in the show.   Unfortunaltey the show is a pay to see kind of thing unless you can catch the broadcast as I did.   I am looking into moreinformation on the NOVA/PBS site as they have a ton of Mars info from all the landers.

I did however find the written transcript for the episode, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3201_mars.html, dry reading,  but good if you are looking for a basis for the science of the game.
Title: Re: Water on Mars
Post by: Hooke on January 27, 2010, 12:19:34 PM
Found a series of mini shows that includes the meat and potatoes as well as great history of mars missions.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/mars/program.html

It is a series of small videos and GREAT to watch.
Title: Re: Water on Mars
Post by: Hyper on January 27, 2010, 10:05:40 PM
Good to see yer still alive and kickin Hooke.
I ran across a paper (god knows where now) that I used to have water on the missions. They stated that water ice would be formed in cracks and chambers below the surface when the planet went cold. This water would be a little less contaminated but sill not "pure" or even close to pure as we know it. They explained how a coaxial well casing would be used to sink into the blob of ice with one ring as a heater and the center as a snorkle tube to suck the liquid out. Thats what I used for the science of getting to some water ice and getting it to the surface.