R
rogers_buck
Guest
I'm sure many have seen this SDC article:<br /><br />LINK<br /><br /><br />The upshot is that all of the planned landers/rovers on the books will come up short of digging a hole deep enough to access the liveable layer on mars. Whereas upper limits are good scientific data points, they are somewhat dissapointing when you want to find critters.<br /><br />Perhaps the most promissing of the landing options detailed in the article are fresh gully formations or fresh craters. These might be good for future rover missions, but I'm wondering if there might be a way to salvage the less mobile missions in the pipeline by equiping them with drilling capabilities for the required 8 meters?<br /><br />The ill-fated Mars Polar Lander dropped an impactor that didn't yield any data but must have yielded a nice hole. If the Phoenix mission could do the same and land next to the hole, it would have some really fresh excavations. The technical challenges for such a feat would be truly daunting and likely impractical. By turning the sequence around, however, it may become more possible.<br /><br />If a rover could laser designate an impact point could a "smart bomb" style inertial projectile hit its mark without destroying the rover? The impact would have to be at a safe enough distance so that targeting errors would be within margins of a survivable and useable result. Material thrown out would need to be accessible yet not so close that the rover is shot-gunned to death. Idealy, the impactor would arrive at near the end of the rovers operational life so that a bad result wouldn't compromise all the science.<br /><br />The survivability requirements would likely mean that such a scheme could only work with a rover and it is probably more practical to crawl into an existing hole rather than to make a fresh one. <br /><br /><br /><br />