Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Drilling down deep for ice on Mars via RedWater technology.
Image credit: Honeybee Robotics

Things are looking up for digging deep on Mars. Progress is palpable on how best to extract subsurface ice to yield made-on-Mars drinkable water, rocket fuel, and other useful resources.

But boring down from the topside of Mars to reach available icy reservoirs is no slam dunk.

Tackling that future desire is Honeybee Robotics, dubbing their approach the RedWater concept.

RedWater system undergoes end-to-end testing in the company’s cold chamber to simulate super-cold conditions on Mars.
Image credit: Honeybee Robotics

Cold shoulder

Meanwhile, there’s the work of the Subsurface Water Ice Mapping (SWIM) on Mars project team, busily charting the whereabouts of water ice on the Red Planet.

Then there’s the fact that Mars is going to give us the cold shoulder. That is, drilling even one meter in ice on that world can be hard to do!

For more information, go to my new Space.com story – “Drilling for water ice on Mars: How close are we to making it happen?” at:

https://www.space.com/mars-water-ice-drill-honeybee-robotics