Jeanette from Kane: Since one MRO objective is to search for and find a location suitable for future human exploration,
what requirements or characteristics would such a site meet?
Okay, well, the first thing is safety. The first thing we'd look for is a place that is not so rocky or doesn't have steep cliffs
that it would be a problem for the vehicle landing. So, it's got to be safe. We'd want to know something about the environment.
We might want to go near the equator where the temperatures are fairly uniform and relatively high for Mars.
So we want to know about the environment. We also want to go to an interesting place. We want to set astronauts down
in an area where we can really learn about the geology of Mars and learn more about the water and search for life.
We might want to go to a place that has good resources; there may be areas where, there's certainly areas where there's
water near to the subsurface, and maybe we may, with the radar, for example, find, sorry...we know there's ice near the surface.
We may find places where there's water near the surface, or at least large amounts of ice in the subsurface. So we may want to send
astronauts to those areas so they can use that water, not only for their own purposes for drinking,
but they may also want to use it for making fuel for their return flight.