By Sharon Gaudin

Robots would build infrastructure, extract usable water from ice before
astronauts arrive

June 27, 2008 (Computerworld) The ice and minerals found using a robotic
arm in the Martian soil could make it easier for humans to live on the
planet in the not-so-distant future.

The ice on the northern pole of Mars has been a particularly important
find for NASA scientists because robots and astronauts could extract
usable, even drinkable, water from it, helping to sustain an extended stay
on the Red Planet, according to Ray Arvidson, a co-investigator for the
Mars Lander's robotic arm team and a professor at Washington University in
St. Louis.

"I think the fact that we found water ice means there's a large reservoir
of it," Arvidson told Computerworld on Friday. "Water is crucial to us as
humans, in terms of keeping us going. Water also is a resource that can be
processed, in terms of getting oxygen and hydrogen. Finding that water
near the surface is important. When you actually go to Mars, you don't
want to take that water with you the fact that the water is close to the
surface is good."