Why did von Braun plan a polar landing?
In von Braun’s historical expedition concept, the first crew would land a glider on a Martian polar ice cap because he believed the caps were the only places where a smooth landing site could be counted on[1]. The equatorial base site, by contrast, would be chosen later through telescope observations from Mars orbit[2].
That separation made the first landing only the start of the surface journey: the crew would abandon its glider, travel roughly 4,000 miles overland to the selected site, and build a landing strip there for two wheeled gliders carrying the rest of the surface party[3]. It was a proposed architecture, not a flown mission or a present-day landing recommendation[4].
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