Universe Today
As Assistant-Director Richard Davis explained to Universe Today via email:
"The Exploration Zone is really a critical concept for enabling human exploration of Mars. It is fundamentally about setting up a semi-permanent base much like we did with the McMurdo Research Station in Antarctica or even the International Space Station. Such a semi-permanent research base is key because we can incrementally build up our presence on Mars…including living and research modules, rovers and a whole range of machinery / robots to support the humans. We can also stockpile food and other consumables, as well as spare parts. This ability to stockpile needed items has proven invaluable onboard ISS and effectively represents a massive insurance policy should anything go wrong. Essentially, we would be building to a sustainable presence. It’s not a colony because it probably will not permanently occupied initially. But it’s a critical foothold on another planet--which frankly would be an evolutionary first!"
"The Exploration Zone is really a critical concept for enabling human exploration of Mars. It is fundamentally about setting up a semi-permanent base much like we did with the McMurdo Research Station in Antarctica or even the International Space Station. Such a semi-permanent research base is key because we can incrementally build up our presence on Mars…including living and research modules, rovers and a whole range of machinery / robots to support the humans. We can also stockpile food and other consumables, as well as spare parts. This ability to stockpile needed items has proven invaluable onboard ISS and effectively represents a massive insurance policy should anything go wrong. Essentially, we would be building to a sustainable presence. It’s not a colony because it probably will not permanently occupied initially. But it’s a critical foothold on another planet--which frankly would be an evolutionary first!"
"If we choose the base location well," Davis added, "it will have access to highly diverse and exciting science regions of interest--to take full advantage of having creative and adaptive humans beings on the planet to achieve revolutionary gains in science. It will also have access to critical resources such as water to sustain the human explorers and to reduce overall mission costs. When this would evolve into a more robust colony is unclear. But the foothold makes that vision much more achievable. If anything I would focus on the foothold… if we get that, I am pretty sure the colony will follow!"