According to Glen Cushing, a scientist at the USGS, one area of Mars likely
to have some long large lava tube caves is on the slopes of the volcano
below:
http://www.solarviews.com/raw/mars/arsia.gif
You can zoom in once by clicking on the photo.
Note numerous large holes which in some cases are nearly a kilometer apart.
This is the same area that was discussed on CaveTex in 2007 when photos of
large pits
were first released.
Ref:
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2330
Note he thinks that robots will someday do our caving for us.
There is a problem with that theory. The current robots require an
operator using radio remote control to tell the robot which moves to make.
Any speleo-robot would have to have the capability to make caving decision
on his own. Such as, "should I use a figure 8 knot here, or a bowline ?"
I don't think any of us will live long enough to see a robot make those
kind of decisions.
So the next choice would be some kind of tethered speleo-robot. But once
the cave reaches a kilometer long, that would not be practical.
The best bet would be to develop some kind of specialized ridge-walker with
GPS, video, and
sensors, that would have the capability to fire some kind of probe into a
pit or cave entrance.
David Locklear
