RickLewis wrote:
I'd suggest sending a two-part spaceship. One part would be a rover that would land on the crater floor. The other part would be to provide communications. It would land on the crater rim and extend a radio antenna and solar panels. It would provide a communications link with the crater floor not only for the first prospecting mission but for any followup missions to the same area.
An obvious problem would be that if the rover was on the crater floor, it would be in darkness. Therefore it would not be able to charge its batteries using solar panels.
Possible solutions would include:
(a) using radioactive material to general electrical power. Can you imagine how popular it would be to launch such a device? Hm.
(b) better - for the lander on the crater rim to collect solar power and then send it to the rover via a laser beam. This might work but the choice of landing site for the lander would be crucial.