could'nt the rover that went to mar's had a water bucket and water and some seeds to grow?

Question

if a spaceship landed on mar's with some bread crumbs,a 1/2 gallon of water and some ant eggs and they hatched how long could 'nt those ants survive on mar's for some given length of time?

Answer 1

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/06/990615080147.htm

The ants would either suffocate or freeze.
http://www.brightsurf.com/news/headlines/15115/Scientists_Recreate_Martian_Environment.html

Answer 2

Unless the ship carrying the rovers was completely pressurized and heated (a big waste of energy and material), the water would have been lost to space along the way.
But lets suppose the rover got to Mars and landed with the bucket of water intact (they don't land like planes, they sort of crash with lots of air bags to protect them, but lets forget that for a moment).

So the rover sprinkles some seeds and waters them, the plants might germinate (if the unshielded trip through space didn't destroy them). And they might grow a bit.
But without detailed mineral analysis of the soil we don't know if there are enough nutrients for the plants to thrive. And one bucket of water on a completely dry world with no rain wouldn't be enough to keep them from dying.
And solar radiation would fry them anyway (no magnetic field to protect the surface from UV and solar radiation).

Or the rover has some bread crumbs (no nutrition for anything in bread crumbs, but lets leave that alone as well) and dumps out some ant eggs. Eggs don't eat bread crumbs, they need controlled heat and humidity levels to hatch (and Mars has daytime temperatures around our room temperature but night-time temperatures can drop to 40 degrees below zero or lower. So the eggs would freeze the first night.
But lets assume they don't freeze, and they hatch. The small amount of bread crumbs left by the rover (if they haven't blown away or been covered by the dust) would keep the ants alive a few days, but without water and the right food (plant life or other insects, depending on the ant species) they would starve in a few days.
And solar radiation would fry them anyway (no magnetic field to protect the surface from UV and solar radiation).

To get plants or insects to thrive on Mars we need:
- lots of water over time
- a respectable air pressure to keep the water liquid
- some way to protect the surface from solar and cosmic radiation
- nutrients and minerals to fertilize the soil until it can sustain itself (earthworms would help, but they would need some help from us to get started converting the sand and dust into usable soil and loam)