• Question: Is there a machine that can make oxygen possible on Mars? Or any other planet.

    Asked by AppleJamMan to Heather, Helen, Hugh, Jane, Julian on 13 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Julian Onions

      Julian Onions answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      Yes – there are lots of machines that can make oxygen, plants being an excellent example. They convert sunlight into oxygen, from CO2 which there is plenty of on Mars.
      Doing it mechanically takes more energy, but can be done. It’s probably easiest to split water, but there isn’t so much of that on Mars except up near the poles – and it takes electricity, so needs solar panels or similar.

      So its fairly easy to make Oxygen, but not so easy to make enough for the whole planet.

    • Photo: Jane MacArthur

      Jane MacArthur answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      There is one being developed! The Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE) will fly on NASA’s Mars 2020 rover, which aims to break down the Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide into oxygen. This will obviously only be done in a small quantity in a contained way given the difficulties and mass limits on missions to Mars, but it is the first step towards proving we could make oxygen there, for people or to make propellant (fuel) to get home again.
      Doing it on a planet wide scale openly would remain extremely difficult if not impossible though, as the weak martian gravity would not hold onto the oxygen and the atmosphere is not thick enough.
      (NB: “ISRU” means “in-situ resource utilisation”, which is a key buzz-phrase which means trying to make use of resources on the spot, rather than having to take them all with you, making your spacecraft heavier).

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