New Mars Forums

Mars

Banned

Registered: 2002-11-21

Posts: 1

Re: School project - Life on Mars

  Doing a project on living on mars somethime in the future, I need to describe two potental sources of water and three soureces of energy and any information would be helpful.
Thanks

Byron

Member

From: Florida, USA

Registered: 2002-05-16

Posts: 844

Re: School project - Life on Mars

Hi!

Well, I think you could kill two birds with one stone by locating a geothermal source of water, which is possible if you drilled deep enough into the regolith.  The water would come up under its own pressure, and it could be harnessed for energy as well.

The obvious source of water on Mars, however is the polar ice caps...just chip a bit off and melt it, although this would require a good deal of energy.  As for energy, I think the two best bets besides geothermal, would be solar and nuclear.  Hyper-efficient solar panels (I'll let Josh explain the details of that    do have the potential to provide a majority, if not all of a settlement's energy needs, although I think a nuclear power plant of some sort would be needed as a backup system.

Anything else you need, just let us know 

B