"Going to Mars is like a camping trip, so it's the difference between having to pack everything in with you or finding gas tanks and showers when you get there. It could make establishing a human presence on Mars a lot easier," she said.
Water -- the source of life
Water is about the most valuable resource Mars has because it can sustain life.
"Gold is not going to do you much good on Mars. You can't live off that," said Wes Huntress, director of the Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington. "But you can live off water and you can use it to grow food. It makes the planet habitable."
Living off the land is crucial because it would allow humans to stay for long periods on Mars.
"Once you can live off the land you can explore the planet like we did in the [American] West 150 or 200 years ago," Huntress said.
Scientists believe trace amounts of water already exist on Mars beneath patches of permafrost at the planet's poles. But if Mars once had lakes or rivers on its surface, as research suggests, the water retreated long ago.
Until now, it seems.
Human missions to the Red Planet
Researchers at last appear to have a good fix on where some of Mars' water is working its way back to the surface. And that has far-reaching implications for both robotic and human missions to the Red Planet.
Because of its chemical components hydrogen and oxygen, water is "a significant resource for exploration at the planet," said John Niehoff, a planetary-program planner at SAIC (Science Applications International Corp.) in Schaumburg, Illinois.
Mars already has plenty of oxygen in its carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere. But hydrogen is exceedingly rare.
"Hydrogen is a key resource in the development of fuels for all kinds of purposes. You could run surface [power] systems or fuel launch vehicles or create fuel-cell storage devices to manage your electricity," Niehoff said.
"We've always been assuming we'd have to bring the hydrogen with us. But with it there, in the form of water, we can go with the equipment and have a power supply. That is a tremendous leverage."
A job for roughnecks
Of course, for the water to be of any major use in surface operations, it would have to be in abundance and available. A trickle wouldn't be much help unless it came from a reservoir that could be tapped.
"We're talking for any individual mission about quantities measured in hundreds of pounds, hundreds of gallons," Niehoff said. "If you find it in reservoirs beneath the surface it would be like mining for oil."
That sort of mining almost certainly would be a job for roughnecks.
"You're not just going to take your pail out and get the water. You've got to mine it out, then you've got to set up a well and have a processing system for it," Niehoff said. "But you're building an oasis because you have the critical indigenous material to do it."
But after all that work, could astronauts slake their thirst with a cool drink of Martian water?
Filter it first
Not until it's filtered first, scientists say. It probably isn't even fresh water.
"I would guess it's salty because it's been in the ground a long time and it's had a chance to absorb stuff," said Steve Maran, spokesman for the American Astronomical Society and author of Astronomy for Dummies. "There's no reason to think it's the sort of sweet water that you get from limestone-filtered rocks on Earth."
However it tastes, it's certain to be one priceless drink.
"Since you're getting 11 bucks a liter for water in some fancy New York restaurants, you could make a fortune with it back here," said Maran.
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