Access
This article is part of Nature's premium content.
Published online 6 May 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/453142a
Phoenix descending
NASA's Mars strategy goes from "follow the water" to "arrive at the ice".
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
Comments
Reader comments are usually moderated after posting. If you find something offensive or inappropriate, you can speed this process by clicking 'Report this comment' (or, if that doesn't work for you, email webadmin@nature.com). For more controversial topics, we reserve the right to moderate before comments are published.
People are living in a dream world if they think there is any chance of establishing permanent colonies on Mars. There is a large area on earth with plenty of food, plenty of water, and a benign climate that has been known for almost 200 years. Yet no villages have been established there yet. That place is Antarctica. Only transients mange to stay there for awhile. I suspect that the hydrogen detected in the Martian soil is there as silicones. That would be much more consistent with a climate drier than the Sahara desert.
The objective is to study the possibility of life on Mars, not the possibilities for colonization.