Word: planetful
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This ersatz Mars has been in the works for years, but until now few people have paid much attention to it, largely because nobody realistically expected to set human eyes on the genuine planet anytime soon. As of last week, however, Building 29 could become the center of the universe--or at least the center of NASA's universe. For the first time in a long time, cosmic planners were given reason to hope that after decades of drift, the U.S. is at last back in the space game...
...election-year candy, it's getting some very serious attention from some very smart people. Mars, they're concluding, is not out of reach for human beings--and it need not take decades to get there. Indeed, there may be any number of possible routes to the Red Planet that could, some say, have boots on the soil in as few as 10 years. All that's needed is the commitment to go--and the institutional maturity to see that commitment through...
...J.P.L. engineers radioed up instructions, the rover prepared to stick its snout in the soil and begin the hunt for signs of ancient water, and with it the hunt for clues to ancient life. Meanwhile, Spirit's sister rover, Opportunity, continues to head for its own landing on the planet...
...more than 12 days. You could fill the tank and the larder once before you left and carry along everything you would need. Not so when you're looking at 14 months of round-trip flight time between Earth and Mars and perhaps a 1 1/2-year stay on the planet to catch the next Earth-Mars alignment back home. Even if it were possible to build a ship big enough to carry all that cargo, you would still have to muscle the mammoth thing off the ground. At some point it simply becomes impossible to build a rocket big enough...
...answer is to manufacture a lot of what you need on-site. If any of NASA's unmanned Mars ships do find accessible water on the planet, it will be very big news, and not merely because of what it means for the possibility of Martian life. Martian water, once purified, ought to be as useful for drinking and bathing as earthly water. What's more, since water is merely hydrogen and oxygen and since it's hydrogen that provides the propulsive fire in some liquid-fuel engines and oxygen that keeps those flames burning, breaking the two elements apart...