Mars May Be Turned Into Tatooine

What's the biggest problem that will face astronauts and cosmonauts traveling to Mars?  It's lack of water.  But this problem may have just found a solution, and you can thank Star Wars for it's answer.

A moisture farm is being planned to be built on the Red Planet beginning in 2018, part of the 2018 ExoMars mission, a project being developed by both the European Space Agency and Russia's Roscosmos.  The joint project will be sending up the Habitability, Brine Irradiation and Temperature package (HABIT) that will "use salts to absorb five milliliters of water from the atmosphere a day."  This idea came about after NASA's Curiosity rover made findings that suggests that "liquid water accumulates just beneath the surface of Mars at night, before evaporating during the day."

Now, I know that five milliliters of water a day doesn't sound like much, but if this process works, then it may be able to expand on it's capabilities in the future to provide water for travelers to Mars.  NASA plans on sending it's first manned mission to the Red Planet some time in the 2030s.

Now if only they could develop blue milk...