Word: soils
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...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...
Perhaps the most interesting spot on the surface is one the spacecraft created. As the bubble-wrapped craft bounced to a landing, it scuffed the ground at a point just south of where the rover now rests. The loose red soil it cleared away has revealed a dark patch of what resembles mud--though that's impossible on the entirely waterless floor of Gusev...
...possibility is that the soil, while now dry, was once wet. Water rising to the surface or sinking down from above could have caused the dirt to congeal, perhaps leaving salty deposits that help hold it together. The Viking probes investigated similar-looking callused patches back in 1976. Investigators on those missions dubbed the features duracrust. The science team working this trip is eager to dig around in the stuff...
...scattering of small craters within the larger Gusev Crater are attractive to mission planners as well. Such secondary-impact pits do geologists' excavation work for them, gouging away upper layers of soil and rock and offering a free peek at what lies below. There appears to be an especially inviting population of small craters to the east and southeast of the rover, providing one more reason for Spirit to head that way when it dismounts. "We've got a capable machine, but we can't dig 20-ft. holes with it," says Squyres. "The way to do that...
Something the scientists do know is that once Spirit has its wheels in the dirt, it's going to act fast. Almost immediately, it will extend its robotic arm and begin sampling the soil directly in front of it. This will allow it both to calibrate its instruments and get the data flow streaming back to Earth. The Apollo astronauts used to do something similar, spending their first moments on the moon collecting what they called a contingency sample--a clump of lunar soil and rock they would tuck into a spacesuit pocket so they would have something to show...