Digging on Mars Won’t Be Easy
Because of the tremendous distance to Mars, human explorers will probably process local materials to get their air, fuel, and even building supplies. But extracting resources from the Red Planet is going to be hard, especially when the environment is so hostile. Scientists are studying how the dry Martian soil will likely behave in the low gravity and air pressure, to help engineers build equipment that can dig and move dirt. NASA’s upcoming Phoenix lander will help put some of this research to the test when it arrives on Mars in 2008; it will be digging trenches about a half-metre deep (20 inches).