One of the next giant leaps for humanity—inhabiting our neighbor planet Mars—requires enough water to support multi-year human survival and to create rocket fuel for the nearly 150-million-mile return trip to Earth. Water that is already on Mars, in the form of ice, is one of the leading in situ resources being considered in preparation for human exploration. Martian ice also provides a scientific record of the climate of Mars. This presentation will highlight techniques and recent activities to characterize Mars’ underground ice, the outstanding questions behind the science of Martian ice and the engineering required to build potential settlements at candidate landing site locations, and how work at this intersection can be enabled by collaborations between space agencies as well as industry partners.
Dr. Ali Bramson is a planetary scientist who specializes in ice and surface processes on planets using spacecraft remote sensing observations. She works on NASA missions currently orbiting the Moon and Mars and is also involved in developing concepts for future space missions. She recently served as the Assistant Co-Chair for the Measurement Definition Team for the International Mars Ice Mapper concept. She received her B.S. degrees in astrophysics and physics with a minor in computer science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her M.S. and Ph.D. in planetary sciences with a minor in geosciences from the University of Arizona. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Purdue University.