Caves of Mars Project

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The Caves of Mars Project is a NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts funded program to assess the best place to situate the research and habitation modules that a manned mission to Mars would require.

Caves and other underground structures, including lava tubes, canyon overhangs, and other Martian cavities would be ideal for manned missions, for they would provide considerable shielding from both the elements and intense radiation that a Mars mission would expose astronauts to. They would also offer easy access to minerals, gasses, ices, and any subterranean life that the crew of such a mission would probably be searching for.

The program also studies designs for inflatable modules and other such structures that would aid the astronauts.

It is now known that water comes to the surface of Mars from time to time, but whether NASA will change the project in light of this has not been said.

[edit] 2007 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference

NASA scientists studying pictures from the Odyssey spacecraft have spotted what they think may be seven caves on the flanks of the Arsia Mons volcano on Mars. The caves may be the only natural structures capable of protecting life from micrometeoroids, UV radiation, solar flares and high energy particles that bombard the planet's surface. [1]