Mars Caves

Using high resolution images from orbiting spacecraft, physicist Glen Cushing of the U. S. Geological Survey thinks he has identified entrances to a large system of caves or lava tubes on the slopes of a large volcano on Mars.

Caves on Mars, Cushing argues, would serve two important functions. They would be very good places to establish human bases because they would provide shelter from the dangers of the surface of Mars like radiation, extremes in temperatures, and dust storms. By the same logic, caves might be the ideal places to search for evidence of past or even present life on Mars.

Theorists of lunar settlement have made many of the same points advocating setting lunar bases and colonies in lava tubes. The early Hawaiians sometimes took refuge in lava tubes, but on low gravity worlds such as the Moon and Mars, such structures can be huge-- miles long and hundreds of feet wide. They could easily accomodate the early stages of a vibrant civilization.

The iconic caveman notwithstanding, early humans probably didn't live in caves. More fearsome creatures likely kept the caves for themselves, perhaps until humans' mastery of fire both gave them a frightening new weapon and a way to make caves more hospitable. Our earliest attempts to expand into the Solar System, however, may take us into alien caves. Those attempts will begin atop pillars of fire.