I love that this demonstrates how some technologies that are simply not really viable outside of scientific study on Earth, would be life changing on another planet.
Bottom line: The worst day in Antartica is vastly better than the best day on Mars. Invest 1/10th as much money in creating new and improved biospheres here on Earth than you planned to blow on that red hellscape.
For anyone having trouble getting over drinking recycled water that used to be pee, just remember, ALL water on Earth is recycled water that used to be pee.
Lol my daughter had a water bottle with dinosaurs on it and we always called it dinosaur water. And yeah a dinosaur most definitely drank that water at some point.
3:28 “…so long as you can psychologically get past that it’s almost all recycled urine…” Well, yes, Earth’s water has been recycled innumerable times. Every glass if water you drink has some component of water that has passed through Napoleon and a t.rex. Only a minuscule amount of water is truly virgin, never-gone-through-someone’s-bladder.
Running out of toilet paper will make everyone kill themselves , if they survive who cleans the crap out of spacesuits ordeal , close call which will be first . They cannot even wash there own clothes on a 150 billion ISS lol .
I had a friend trying to explain to me that Red Bull has bull sperm as an ingredient because it has Taurine in it which is a component of most meat and fish. I recently came across some click bait thing, that I avoided clicking, explaining that I was eating the wrong type of carbon atoms in my diet.
Anyone who plays the "Surviving Mars" computer game soon realizes that the least stressful way of surviving Mars is to take no people until the place is built up by the machines like a massive holiday resort. Not having to worry about people freezing to death, dying of thirst, suffocating, or just going insane is a big weight off your mind.
A day in that game is messured as a year tho....so 150-300 years to taraform the planet, plus we dont have any of the tech unlocked in our reaility...our trillions of dollars...all we got is a rocket that can get there..
Those chemical oxygen generators (also known as oxygen candles) are also used on submarines and on aircraft as emergency oxygen supplies. Submarines get most of their oxygen from electrolysis, usually having a pair of electrolysers - one is actually enough most of the time, but they have two as a backup. The oxygen generators are only used if the electrolyser sources are offline for whatever reason. They are also quite dangerous, partially because they get so hot in operation but also because the sodium chlorate is a powerful oxidiser. They are basically big sparklers - the mix contains just enough iron powder to sustain the combustion and generate enough heat to decompose the excess sodium chlorate into oxygen. The other danger comes from accidental contamination - there have been several incidents where one of these oxygen candles got contaminated with oil or grease, and then subsequently detonating when ignited, killing several unfortunate submariners. The same devices are used as the emergency oxygen generators on commercial aircraft: If cabin pressure is lost during a flight and those oxygen masks drop from the panels above your seat, this is where the oxygen comes from - when you pull on the mask, the string pulls the trigger on the igniter which starts the oxygen flow. The reason these are used is because they are much lighter weight than compressed oxygen cylinders, which is an important consideration for aircraft. They typically produce oxygen for about 20 minutes, which is enough time for the pilots to take the plane down to an altitude where extra oxygen isn't needed any more. There was a quite famous (or infamous) incident where a plane was transporting a load of oxygen generators to be decommissioned in the forward cargo compartment. They were supposed to have been deactivated (by removing the ignition triggers) but whoever was supposed to do that forgot to. One of them ignited and set off a chain reaction, igniting most of the rest and filling the cargo compartment with oxygen, causing an intense fire in flight. The fire burned through the avionics bay above the compartment and caused the plane to crash - but the pilots didn't think it could have been a fire at the time since a fire in a cargo compartment at altitude should not have been possible - it was only the boosted oxygen level from the oxygen generators which made it possible. This was only worked out retrospectively after the crash, and was one of the weirdest crash investigations ever done.
Thank you Prof. Miles, it is actually the first time I see a proper explanation of the Moxie device installed on the Perseverance Rover. Greetings, Anthony
The Martian atmosphere may be 95% CO2 but the atmosphere is very thin, meaning 95% doesn’t equate to a lot in a thin atmosphere. Two large, mature trees can provide enough oxygen from CO2 to provide for a family of four but you’d have to water them, keep them in a warm environment and capture the oxygen somehow.
during the night most trees' process flips btw and they'll need oxygen at that moment. Also they'll need particular nutrients from the soil, which are absent on Mars. Before we can talk trees there's allot of preceeding terraforming steps that need to be done I'm afraid brother :(
Quran says: “Allah:there is not God except he”:The Neccessary life/consciousness,sustainer of life/consciousness.” Wire like neuronal structures that conduct electricity via ions/neurotransmitters in the CNS/PNS possess no attribute of thinking/life and yet that has “randomly” led to life. Consciousness/thinking is an innate idea(“Fitra”)that is distinct from carbon skeleton and yet the materialist scientist believes that chemistry turned into biology via “god of randomness”/”Emergent property”/”law of nature”. Consciousness can only stem from Necessary Consciousness (Allah-one/indivisible/loving/self-sufficient perfection).
There's a significant misunderstanding of how trees work. Trees use carbon pulled from the atmosphere to create support material, meaning that in order for the tree to convert CO2 to oxygen, it has to take the carbon from the air, combined with water to make CHO chains and release a small amount of oxygen as a waste product. All carbon stored in trees eventually becomes atmospheric carbon again due to decomposition. The reason most of our oxygen comes from the ocean is that, while plankton has the same process of photosynthesis, the carbon that makes their bodies falls down to the bottom of the ocean and is never released again until we discover it as oil. Also I would vary my Google searches more broadly. There's no way two trees could support a family. Finally, I can't be sure, but I'm willing to presume that a tree working under such low atmospheric density would either not survive, or be significantly less efficient in producing waste oxygen through photosynthesis.
Doesn't matter how NASA tries to make oxygen on mars. Mars lacks enough gravity to keep a meaningful layer of atmosphere, constantly losing it to space literally, when combined with the lack of a protective magnetic field from its mostly dead core. Its atmosphere is constantly being stripped away and would be like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it.
I think your missing the point, these technologies are not intended to terra-form mars. They are meant to generate the required recourses for enclosed habitats from the environment that’s already available.
In sci fi novels self sustaining suits are sometimes described. It’s intriguing to imagine the apotheosis of development of such a system - creating a level 3 synthetic micro techno-biosphere bubble around a person that recycles all waste products to sustain life. Is this even physically possible? It’s the food and nutrition aspect that is hardest for me to imagine.
What you're talking about is basically a combination between a space suit, and a still suit from Frank Herbert's Dune. A suit like that could theoretically be worn for weeks, provided it stays in good working order, and you have a very dense power source. With regards to food and nutrition, that should either be available in a situation where you are not dependent on the suit itself, but are travelling in some kind of vehicle (like a ground or flying vehicle), or if it were somehow to be part of the suit, it would have to be incredibly dense in the necessary nutrients, in either a liquid (like soylent), or in a pil or capsule form.
@@fjvmunsterman yeah, food and waste are the hard issues. There's also a pretty cool emergency survival suit in KS Robinson’s 2312 book. I think the characters say you could expect to survive for weeks in space. It had medical care built in too with a suite of drugs and the ability to care for wounds. Also the suit helps you put it on with built in servos. Each suit was an individual AI as well, highly intelligent.
@@charlesblithfield6182 Well, if you could somehow transfer at least the human feces, urine, and the exhaled carbon-dioxide to one spot, and let that pass through some type of miniature bio-filter/reactor system, made up of (perhaps designed ?) micro-organisms, that feed off the waste products (the urea, the feces, and the CO2), while also filtering most of the water for reuse when passing through, and produce some oxygen, and maybe a little heat while doing so (which could then be turned into electricity to be stored), you would all-ready be well on your way. For the water in sweat recovery you would need a separate system, that would connect at the end of that system with what would be the water storage system in the suit. An (active) human being produces on average about a liter of sweat per hour, and between 0.8 to 2 liters of urine per day, which could total up to 26 liters per day in extreme cases (allthough in such a case a good amount of that water would also be reabsorbed during that day by the person inside the suit via fluid intake). Having a built-in medical suite, and a suit A.I. wouldn't hurt either (especially if you were about to kick the bucket for some reason). I recognize the idea of a built-in medical suite from reading "The Forever War" book (and subsequent comic series) by Joe Haldeman, and the suit A.I. from the fairly recent Final Space animated series.
What i love about Mars is that during summer time even a thin atmosphere at that distance from the Sun could go up to 20C - which is quite a pleasant temp. (ignoring the pressure and composition issues) - which suggest that if the planet could hold onto a thicker atmosphere (magnetic field / gravity) - it could be a pleasant place in the solar system.
It can't, mars has not a strong enough magnetic field, mars cant hold on an atmosphere that could support live, we should care more about our world and not look for other planets
I often wonder, how long the atmosphere of Mars takes to disapate into Space via the Sun's Solar Wind's effects. Are we talking centuries or millenium? If the atmosphere were increased by 20%, would it be gone by decades or longer? Is it possible to increase the atmosphere by the amount that is blown off, PLUS an increase to build a stronger atmosphere? What would it take to do that in real time?
@@fredericelbo9211it has nothing to do with magnetic field. Mass/ gravital force is the only thing thats needed to hold the atmosphere. Magnetic field is to protect the possible life from uv and other deadly lightwaves.
At about 2:00 into the video, you said that that the oxygen is converted to CO2 until the oxygen levels are too support life. That is not what happens. The CO2 levels increases to a level that essentially poisons us to death. “The rising level of carbon dioxide is what kills people first when they're in an airtight environment, not the level of oxygen,” Dr. Dale Molé, the former director of undersea medicine and radiation health for the U.S. Navy, told The Daily Mail.
Wow. Through the fog of time, I can now make out a self sustaining space suit (after we create tiny, but extremely energy dense power cells to power it on Mars). Thanks for the illumination good Doctor.
@@liam3284 Good point, there is a limit to how much energy can be radiated that is determined by the temperature difference, so the problem may not be so bad when the temperature is very low...
have they figured out how to make a magnetic field my limited scientific mind tells me, atmosphere is a great plus, but the main thing that has to happen is a magnetic field or the Sun’s photons could rip any progress apart in as something as simple and regular as a solar flare. but then again i only stayed in a Holiday Inn express and have now graduated any degrees in astrophysics
The MOXIE is amazing. My favorite part is the girl who designed it went to Michigan Tech and was from a rural town in Wisconsin. It gives me hope that I can do the same when I grow up!
just found this channel n subbed. i liked this video a lot. it felt like a full circle moment back when i was 12 watching science channels and barely understood a thing, now i understood everything you said.
4:25 If the percentage of oxygen consumed by methanotrophs isn't too high, it might be possible to use methane-consuming bacteria to use up the methane and convert it into CO2.
Both methods appear to produce carbon monoxide. Is there a use for it? What else is needed for a habitat's atmosphere? I assume a Martian habitat would operate below one Earth atmosphere. Is it easy to isolate Mars's atmospheric nitrogen to fill a habitat volume? I would love another video of lunar regolith oxygen extraction.
Acquiring nitrogen would seem to be the next big step, as we need something to reduce the partial pressure of the oxygen. Besides the obvious fire hazard, breathing pure oxygen for too long is extremely bad for the human body. Since nitrogen is so non-reactive, I think isolating it from the Martian atmosphere would be more a matter of removing the CO2 and retaining what's left over, rather than some chemical process.
Carbon monoxide or dioxide can be used to create methane as a byproduct. COx to CH4 am I right? Spacex's starship's primary fuel is methane if I understand it correctly.
@@joythoughtif you've water and CO2 you can make rocket fuel for the starship. Whilst this video hand waves away the water issue, extracting water will be one of the primary first steps of human colonisation of the red planet.
So what about plants? I’ve seen videos about photosynthesis and how they actually do it and end up making oxygen, but it’s very complicated. What exact mechanism do plants use and can we recreate that with technology or it is something that is probably only possible with biology? I know plants can’t live on mars lol in so many ways but i’m just thinking about this mechanically. Time to go relearn photosynthesis again, I guess. Good video!
As I understand it, while a plant is receiving light and growing it is sequestering carbon atoms and turning them into leaves and releasing oxygen. So if I think back to the movie "The Martian" where the character Mark Watney grew potatoes his potato plants would have been releasing oxygen during the daytime. There are some plants such as cactus that have another photosynthesis process that works 24 hours a day.
It's important to note that while photosynthesis is a crucial process for life on Earth, it's also very inefficient compared technological solutions. The beauty of using photosynthesis, however, isn't that it's better than the solutions we came up with so far, but that it works without much need for human intervention. Plants and algae in particular are great, because they solve many problems for us: they produce oxygen, they provide food, and they recycle our waste products. It's hard to try and artificially recreate a system that can do all that plus repair itself and adapt to changes in its environment.
Well, creating a poisonous gas like carbon monoxide along with the oxygen you want to breathe is kinda of a problem. I assume they were able to separate these? Pity about the carbon coating the device, could have made it more effective at providing oxygen on a mission. Maybe it needs a solvent stage?
I thought that the problem with terraforming Mars was about the weak magnetic field that makes maintaining atmosphere a problem. In addition, is the magnetic field not important as protection from radiation? Is there a way to alter or strengthen the magnetic field?
There is a way yes. But that way is to 1) make the planet spin faster (good luck with that) And/or 2) gather so much energy that you can remelt the core of the planet and make it molten again. (Also good luck with that) So unless you’re basically god, you’re gonna be doing a whole lot of nothing.
3) build a massive electro magnet out at Mars 1 Lagrange point. It would take a few tens of thousands of tonnes worth of copper and one or two nuclear reactors of power. Far more doable.@@DoubleU159
The first step is to regenerate an electrical field around Mars. There is no sense in creating an atmosphere unless you can protect it, to keep the sun from boiling it off. And to protect anyone living there.
@@idk-ex9ce Yes to both. But unless earth loses its magnetic field it will retain its atmosphere of heavier gasses. I'm curious how you think the moon is involved this?
@@georges3799 There are proposals that could work theoretically to give Mars a sustainable magnetosphere. One such is heating the core of Mars by using nuclear material or other methods. This proposal came from recent studies of NASA that suggests that Mars has a liquid iron core like earth too.
@@idk-ex9ce That's pure sci-fi at this point. The amount of money it would take would be astronomical and frankly would be a colossal waste of resources. This kind of thing would take 100s of generations to accomplish. Just like his vacuum subway, Elon is selling vaporware again.
We can create a less hostel atmosphere either way it's being stripped away. I've read papers that suggested ways to make an atmosphere on Mars and would take something like 150,000 years to strip away without any magnetic field so the horse can come after the cart in this
yeah, these dreamers need to be reminded of that fact. its silly to think mankind is mature enough to go to another world, create a biosphere and keep from destroying it like we do here daily on Earth.
@@RasakBlood I realize that, but I did say we'd need to take everything if we go. Didn't I? And why go if we can't stay? Can't robots continue to find stuff for us for far less risk and price? And if humans go, why not stay? Just to say we went? Seems like a waste of time and money, if we go just for bragging rights. How many roads and bridges do we build on Earth instead of just using the money for bragging rights?
@@Toddhull6185 how about we figure out how to not destroy our first home before we worry about going somewhere else to destroy any more? its not much to ask.
wow, that was information dense and totally out of my comfort zone of knowledge, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it and was explained very well, thanks for sharing
What a charming idea to waste Earth’s natural resources to make a SMALL and absurdly hostile location a bit less lethal. Logic leaves the chat - profit enters.
I love how you didn’t even watch the video before commenting. To give a tldr(or Tldw) it was a video on how to do stuff in inhospitable environment, mostly mars, that you can reuse the resources, from reusing what you brought to mars to living off of the compounds on mars. Also anyone with half a brain would understand that you can’t just carry enough “natural resources” to deplete earths supply, and if your talking about the national economy, nasa gets payed a tenth of a penny per tax dollar so no this has nothing to do with “wasting earths natural resources” and I see no profit for a lone company in doing this, governments do this to advance humans and maybe a little trying to out do other governments but it has nothing to do with profit
Since human life requires Earth's Gravity or we die in just over a year. I don't see a Mars or colony anywhere else until that issue is solved. Creating oxygen anywhere in the universe is child's play.
It doesn't make a difference if we can make oxygen on Mars. That is the easy part of the problem, the real problem is stopping the sun solar wind from removing the oxygen. Mars doesn't have a strong enough magnet field to deflect the solar winds to protect the air sphere. Tht doesn't mean we don't have the ability to build building to live in or use, but that isn't really the same.
If you were in a sealed barrel, the build-up of carbon dioxide would kill you before you used up half the oxygen. So, you would not die by running out of oxygen.
I would really like it if Elon Musk went to Mars. I don't know why he is taking so long but I am convinced that the world would be a better place if Elon Musk was on Mars.
wow so you have discovered how to add enough mass to increase the gravity and enough water vapor containing gas to hold heat in an atmosphere and also to how create a martian geo magnetic field to deflect solar particles to protect it. !? now thats sci fi!
Can I put a plug in here for a more direct route? Mars air actually contains molecular oxygen. Sure, it's only 0.13% but once you remove the carbon dioxide (96%) the remaining gas stream is actually 3% oxygen. Carbon dioxide is relatively easy to extract - it will freeze or liquefy at modestly low temperatures/pressures. The trick is maintaining overall efficiency. In other words regaining the energy you put into the CO2 extraction. Here's one way to do this: Start with Martian air. Filter, compress. Cool the air and further compress, yielding liquid CO2 and a gas stream. Take this liquid CO2 and apply a heat source (nuclear + waste heat from the compression processes). The liquid CO2 turns into high pressure supercritical CO2. Now run a turbine to create electricity, expanding the CO2 and exhausting it back to the ambient air. Some of this electricity runs your gas processing plant. Some will power your Mars base. Here's the really nice bit. You don't need huge radiators (the bane of big nuclear power sources on Mars) since the heat is exhausted along with the working fluid (CO2). Now, you've got a manageable stream of what is mostly nitrogen, argon, oxygen and carbon monoxide. You use well understood thermodynamic processes (cooling, compression, phase change and fractional distillation) and you have nitrogen for life support (essential), argon (useful for cleaning and can be used as a buffer gas) and of course oxygen. The other nice bit is low temperatures and simple, rugged equipment. And if you're really clever you'll also capture the trace of water vapour (some tens of parts per million) sufficient to life support makeup.
I know how incredibly impractical it is... but.... we need to figure out ROV's that can grab asteroids high in water content and crash them into Mars. That, combined with inoculating Mars with bacteria and other life forms that can generate oxygen, is the quickest way to generate an atmosphere.
I think we are still far away from anything that is viable. The biggest problems on this come down to 1) energy requirements, 2) weight and 3) cost. To solve all of these requires new and currently unknown tech. It all comes down to the development of a safe, low cost, high capacity, light weight energy source.
How would you keep the carbon monoxide from leaking out with the desired oxygen? Can you really separate them with something resembling 100% effectiveness?
"If" we could constantly pump air around mars, would it "Stick around"? Is half the Earth's gravity enough? If so, what would make it dissipate? There was water and air there before we presume, what happened to that atmosphere?
Mars lost its magnetic field. Its core cooled off too much to act as a magnetic dynamo like the core of the earth. Without a magnetosphere, solar winds can blow off the atmosphere. If we found a way to oxygenate Mars's atmosphere, it would still be at risk from the solar wind. But there is still an atmosphere there currently. And humanity is resourceful. I'm not sure how we could make an artificial magnetosphere. And I don't know if it is even possible to warm up Mars's core. But if we could pump the right chemicals into Mars's upper atmosphere, we could attempt to use said chemicals to try and deflect the solar wind and radiation.
12:17 It is to allow the animals cross water like the ocean or a river. The chicken can stand on the dog. The cat can hold on to the dog and only have its head out the water. 🐓 🐕🐈 🌊🌊 🌊🌊🌊🌊
12:45 Man, even IPCC report claims that further increase in CO2 levels will have nigh-zero impact on the climate. i.e. doubling of CO2 to 800ppm would cause about 0.06*C increase in global temperatures by 2100 which is essentially untraceable in a complex chaotic system like climate.
End all be all, a breakdown, the most efficient way to make the air breathable is some kind of generator (similar to Moxy) that converts Mars atmosphere into what we breath on Earth, stored, then breathed inside closed environments. LTPs too?
I highly encourage anyone interested to investigate atmospheric CO2 concentration. Consider the following questions; 1. What is the ideal CO2 concentration to support photosynthesis? 2. What is the minimum before plants die? 3. What is the maximum CO2 concentration in the past (prior to the 800k years most "studies" span)? For some climate related entertainment look up John Kerry trying to address the answer to number 3 before Congress. It tells you all you need to know. Don't get me wrong... I'm all for reducing "pollution" and getting away from "combustibles" to generate power. I just don't appreciate being blatantly lied to to accomplish some largely anonymous, unaccountable group's "goals", regardless of what those goals may be. Peace. PS, also consider what it must be like to work in a field where you must "conform-or-be-fired". Ask any "climate scientist" for the answer.
@@user-rs3lm1ci6nreally? You might want to look that up. Sceptically. Use your brain. A strong case can be made that atmospheric CO2 concentration actually follows temperature, instead of the other way around. Think about it... also consider that it has been "proven" by folks that will lose their jobs if they don't tow the line. Look up professor Ian Clark, et. al., for more, if you really care about the subject. And, if you are serious, answer the three questions posed above. For yourself - not because you want to "go along to get along". I would guess that you and I agree on 90+% of things that really matter. Please consider that you might be being lied to, and, if you conclude that you are being lied to, respond accordingly. Peace.
@@user-rs3lm1ci6nI'll ignore the patronage... But, I highly encourage you to answer the three questions I initially posed. For yourself. I can point you to good resources if you like. Talk to me, my friend. I'm not spending my time trying to insult you... Peace.
As an aside; do you know where Plymouth Rock is? It's in exactly the same place, surrounded by the roughly the same sea-level, that was there when Columbus first encountered it. FYI. Even if the climate does change, which it will, human beings are capable of adapting to their environment. Save for a disaster, such changes do not happen overnight (historically). Do you want to live in a Teepee and ride bikes for the rest of your life? Think about it... it's an agenda. Wake up.
Why isn't the waste methainbe used as rocket fuel to reestablish orbit or for the fuel used during space walks. Also there is little point terriforming Mars, it's too small to hold onto its atmosphere but If you were going to do it in the quantities meeded it would be easier to vacuum up the air from venue, process it to types of emelents needed during the trip to Mars, then pump it out. You might get a more habitable Venue in the process.
Because rockets need a stoichiometric mix of oxygen and fuel, and the oxygen is being used to keep the astronauts breathing. If you tried to use the spare methane as fuel, you wouldn't have enough oxygen to mix with it and you'd end up lugging around a bunch of useless methane.
@danielfrake114 To get material from Venus to Mars you'd have to overcome Venusian gravity AND add enough velocity to move it away from the sun. It might be easier to get stuff from the asteroid belt or the moons of Jupiter and send it sunward.
As far as nuclear powered submarines go, the only real limiting factor when it comes to how long you can stay submerged is food. We had no problem making water and oxygen and scrubbing CO2 as long as there was power to run the systems. But of course we had the massive oceans of water we snuck around in to draw from and keep all of that going and sub-optimal planets like Mars do not. I really don't think it's possible to setup a long-term colony/science station on Mars without bringing a LOT of stuff, even if you can achieve self-sustainability eventually.
Creating Oxygen is common knowledge in this day and age. The real science that needs to be studied is how to make an atmosphere that will retain that oxygen... Mars needs a magnetic field strength that it does not currently have to create an atmosphere that will retain oxygen.
its going to take more then half a century to give mars a breatherble atmosphere. Step 1) Create a Moon base Step 2) Expand the Moon base into a colony Step 3) Further expand the Moon colony into a self sufficient city with industry and mining operation Step 4) Build Mars rockets and equipment on the Moon Step 5) repeat step 1 to 3 on Mars Step 6) start the terraforming
We've "lost the information which put a man on the moon" (which is on our doorstep) but we have multiple rovers and helicopters beaming HD images back from Mars which is 33 million miles away ........ yeah, right. 33? hmmmmm
Seems like bioengineering algae or something similar to survive on Mars would be a good option. Technology should be at that level within a century or so.
way less than a century. We are already using algae tech now. A couple of decades of dedicated research would probably be more than sufficient to get us to a "mars solution" from where we are now. We just need someone to decide to do that dedicated research.
@@FlesHBoX I was giving a large margin since it may take serious gene editing to accomplish. Radiation is the biggest hurdle since there are plenty of nutrients, sunlight, and co2.
@@The1stDukeDroklarTrue, the radiation is going to end up being a big issue no doubt. Though, presumably we would be growing the algae in an environment where we can also survive, so maybe it will end up a non-issue, since we need to solve that for us anyways.
@@FlesHBoX Ah, see I was talking about algae or something that can convert co2 to o2 while living on the surface without the need for a controlled environment.
@@The1stDukeDroklarOh, yeah, that would be more along the lines of terraforming Mars, which I certainly agree, we are looking at at least a century before that's out of the realm of scifi
What makes you think you can create an atmosphere on a planet with no magnetosphere? Even if you could, the radiation from the sun would kill everyone anyway
An even bigger issue is maintaining the 79% Nitrogen to have a breathable atmosphere you cant live in a pure Oxygen atmosphere; leakage and breach of pressurised containment pose an equally. Critical element. We need to be working on a process that does both. Separate out the Co2 CO and methane from the 2.7% Nitrogen, then split Co2 into usable Oxygen and eliminate the Co, which has a greater affinity to haemoglobin. There are a few methods all very energy-intensive. You will need 6m3 O2 per day for an 8-man team metabolic plus additional depending on leakage due to seals and every time you go outside your habitat, which will be 0.6m2 in a 3m3 lock for example. You will also need 2.3m3 to replace the nitrogen lost per entry/exit. Nitrogen leakage may be 15m3 at 5% by volume in a 300m3 habitat plus 3m3 Oxygen. so to maintain a 300m habitat you effectively need 10m3 per day of Oxygen and 18m3 of Nitrogen as a minimum for one Lock cycle per day and Habitat pressure maintenance. 1. Production and Management of Oxygen and Nitrogen: Oxygen: As per your estimation, 10 m³ of oxygen is needed daily. This could potentially be produced by splitting CO₂ (a plentiful resource on Mars) using processes like electrolysis or the Sabatier reaction. The latter also produces methane, which could be used as a fuel or further processed. Nitrogen: The requirement is to produce 18 m³ of nitrogen daily. The primary source is the Martian atmosphere, though it's only 2.7% nitrogen. Efficient extraction and processing methods are essential. 2. Technological Solutions: Electrolysis: For splitting CO₂ into oxygen and carbon monoxide. The CO can then be further processed or used in other chemical reactions. Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) and Membrane Technology: For separating nitrogen from the Martian atmosphere and from other gases like CO and methane. Sabatier Reaction: To produce methane and water from CO₂ and hydrogen, followed by electrolysis of water to generate additional oxygen. 3. Energy Requirements: These processes are energy-intensive, necessitating a robust and reliable energy infrastructure on Mars. Solar power, nuclear power, or a combination thereof might be required. 4. Leakage and Containment: Addressing leakage is critical. This involves not only having highly reliable habitat construction but also efficient recycling and replenishment systems for lost gases. Advanced monitoring systems would be needed to detect and quantify leakage in real-time, allowing for prompt corrective actions. 5. Resource Recycling and Reuse: Implementing a Closed Loop Life Support System that recycles air, water, and other resources to reduce the need for constant production. Biological systems, like plants in a greenhouse, could assist in maintaining oxygen levels and could also play a role in nitrogen cycling. 6. Safety and Redundancy: Systems must be designed with multiple redundancies and safety measures to handle unexpected failures or breaches. Emergency supplies of oxygen and nitrogen, possibly in compressed or liquefied form, could be stored for use in case of a critical system failure. 7. Research and Development: Continuous R&D will be crucial for improving the efficiency of these processes, developing new technologies, and ensuring the long-term sustainability of the habitat. The energy balance is critical. Solar may be challenging as dust storms may last months making solar unusable. Due to the thin atmosphere, even strong winds on Mars carry much less energy compared to Earth. Therefore, a wind turbine on Mars would produce significantly less power than a similar turbine on Earth under the same wind conditions. In reality, Neuclear may be the only viable reliable power source which poses its own challenges. Setting up a nuclear reactor on Mars would require careful planning. The infrastructure for a nuclear power plant is complex and requires a lot of materials and specialized equipment. Remote or autonomous installation might be necessary, given the harsh and dangerous environment. Cooling Systems: Unlike Earth, Mars lacks large bodies of water and has a thin atmosphere, which makes cooling a nuclear reactor more challenging. Advanced cooling systems, possibly using radiative cooling or engineered heat sinks, would be necessary. Maintenance and Repairs: The reactor must be designed for high reliability with minimal maintenance, considering the difficulty in sending repair crews or parts from Earth. Robotics and automation would play a crucial role in maintenance. One breakdown and you are toast Protection from solar radiation will be crucial in longterm colonisation with shielding a critical factor to protect against not just radiation al affect on people but to shield critical electronics form electromagnetic damage from solar flares as Using electronics designed to withstand radiation ('rad-hard' electronics) is crucial. These are already used in satellites and space probes. In summary, maintaining a balanced and breathable atmosphere on Mars is a complex challenge that requires a combination of advanced technology, robust engineering, and continuous innovation. It involves efficiently producing and recycling oxygen and nitrogen, managing energy needs, and ensuring the integrity and safety of the habitat's atmosphere against leaks and other losses.
This is really interesting and an excellent video Sir. We often forget though that we also need inert Nitrogen to mix the oxygen with so things don't just oxidise, degrade or catch fire? I believe the ISS is at 1 atmosphere and nitrogen is shipped there? Most other space craft are about 1/3 atmosphere. It's still amazing to me that the tragedy of Apollo 1 was caused by a pure oxygen atmosphere at just above 1 atm, something I remember from school of how reactive pure oxygen is. So to colonise permanently long term we need about 78% Nitrogen, a 4:1 ratio with Oxygen, preferably an inert gas that doesn't smell ;-). And plants, to grow food, must have CO2 and sunlight, and you need humidity. It seems vastly complicated.
How do you keep the oxygen in the atmosphere without dissipating thigh the weak atmosphere? How, without thickening the anisotropic, would we keep the heat in the atmosphere in order that any octet generators could maintain or live?
Thanks. If you apply first principles thinking, life support systems of the future will just replicate the role of plants in a small compact space. Simplifying, we consume oxygen and glucose for energy, and just need an energy source to convert the water and CO₂ back to glucose. The only reason this is not being done is because here on earth it’s easier to grow plants for food and nobody is willing to research another way.
What about nitrogen? You might not need to replenish it the same way you need to with oxygen but if there's say a leak of your contained atmosphere how would you replace it?
Im just curious why they need to extract oxygen from the very thin atmosphere while the soil is full of iron oxide and other stuff probably containing oxygen. Can't they extract oxygen from melting the iron oxide to iron and oxygen? Im sure the iron will be useful for building material anyway. Is that even possible?
By taking the H2 from two water molecules from the subsurface glaciers on Mars and combining with the single carbon from CO2 to make methane rocket fuel, there would be two O2 molecules left to serve as oxidizer for the rocket and some could be used for hermetic living and working spaces. However, to achieve an Earthilike atmosphere for humans and indoor agriculture, a nitrogen source must be found. Mars atmosphere is ~3% nitrogen so what plans are there for harvesting it to combine with oxygen for habitable spaces?
You compress the atmosphere like they're already doing in the test. You cool the compressed gas through a radiator, then let it expand into another chamber. The expansion will cool it enough to turn the CO2 into dry ice (this is how it is done on Earth!) and the Nitrogen will remain as a gas. You can do this in multiple stages to get colder and colder until you get liquid Helium. Most processors stop at liquid Nitrogen because it's commercially viable and many other gasses will liquify earlier. If you leave a big Dewar of liquid Nitrogen open, Oxygen will condense into it and you have to be very careful not to dump it on anything remotely flammable. It's a nice pale blue color, so at least you can tell when it has built up. The process is energy intensive, so it would be good to have the array of orbiting solar panels with microwave power beaming to the surface in place first.
It's fascinating how we can't event reduce the 1% CO2 in our atmosphere in our planet, where we all live and breathe... yet we beleive we can transform the atmosphere of another planet where no human has set foot, where the atmosphere is more than 90% CO2, 0% Oxygen, and atmospheric pressure 100 times thinner than that of earth.
It’s a long-term hypothetical concept. Terraforming isn’t about simply removing the CO2 and adding oxygen. It would be a multi-step process that could take centuries or millennia.
The idea of having an atmosphere on Mars is somewhat silly, there is a reason it does not and that is its escape velocity. Earth's escape velocity is just enough to keep the atmosphere more or less intact, but Mars' is not. End of discussion, unless you add a lot more mass to Mars... There just happens to be some spare mass in the asteroid belt which is not far away. So you are stuck inside a structure of some kind.
Remembering a sci fi series of books about Mars. They terraformed, and had seeded the entire planet with little oxygen producers. But, even if you started enriching the planet Mars with Oxy? Would it stay on Mars? I heard that the Martian atmosphere was stripped away by forces? Gravity not strong enough to keep gases trapped on surface? idk.
MOXIE is pretty exciting, but for me the thought of taking the Martian atmosphere and turning the CO2 into CO is pretty disturbing. Would it be possible to extract oxygen from the regolith? It seems to me that in a fairly stable CO2 based atmosphere, oxidised minerals (well, CO2 is oxidised carbon) are likely to remain as they are, because they won't easily combine with CO2. Grinding up regolith for minerals and oxygen, surely would have multiple benefits including the opportunity to thicken up the atmosphere (cf KSR's Red / Green / Blue Mars trilogy).
If a planet a quarter the size of Mars (such as Pluto) replaced Photoe and Demos its gravity could reawaken the magnetic field of Mars which would protect the atmosphere from being stripped away by the solar wind. Nitrogen ice and Water ice could be used to terraform the atmosphere to resemble Earth's air supply.
I am sure that NASA would be more into make it before you get there and keep on doing it. Could you use electrostatic to keep the MOXY from coking in the same way you would use it to keep dust from building up? It may be possible to use geothermal power to generate the power you would need. You would need to drill deep but the new plasma drills could do the job rather quickly. This could be powered by a Methalox generator to power the drill long enough to dig the hole. One thing that amazes me is why NASA does not use electrostatic mesh to keep it's solar panels free of dust. Why is that I wonder? Low temperature plasma to separate the molecules sounds like a great idea. I wonder if you can also do this with sound waves?
If we built a storage container we could just keep filling it with liquid oxygen so that when we finally get there we have a good supply of Oxygen, Hydrogen,
It is very attractive to envision human habitation on the surface of Mars, but frankly two large permanent space station repair and construction O'Neill Cylinders, one at a Lagrange point somewhere in the Earth-Moon system and another orbiting Mars (although the Mars station could arguably be better as a base on the Mars side of Phobos rather than an O'Neill Cylinder), ideally coupled with a Mars Cycler or two would be a much more reasonable first step. The Mars Cyclers make the trip to Mars and back much more energy efficient and the permanent bases outside of deep gravity wells provide for a source of repairs, spare parts, equipment, etc. for either the surface colony on Mars or for repair and upkeep of the Mars Cyclers.
I love that this demonstrates how some technologies that are simply not really viable outside of scientific study on Earth, would be life changing on another planet.
Exactly.
There's no limit to what Big Oxygen will do to try to push their 'product'.
@@etsequentia6765lmao oxygen Gate
Bottom line: The worst day in Antartica is vastly better than the best day on Mars. Invest 1/10th as much money in creating new and improved biospheres here on Earth than you planned to blow on that red hellscape.
@@astralclub5964 sorry but Antarctica isn't just excluded from the earths problems lol. Now if we figured out the OCEAN instead, that could be a step.
For anyone having trouble getting over drinking recycled water that used to be pee, just remember, ALL water on Earth is recycled water that used to be pee.
That first untainted water a few billion years ago hit different though
Lol my daughter had a water bottle with dinosaurs on it and we always called it dinosaur water. And yeah a dinosaur most definitely drank that water at some point.
3:28 “…so long as you can psychologically get past that it’s almost all recycled urine…” Well, yes, Earth’s water has been recycled innumerable times. Every glass if water you drink has some component of water that has passed through Napoleon and a t.rex. Only a minuscule amount of water is truly virgin, never-gone-through-someone’s-bladder.
The amount of piss is tiny compared to how much water is in the sea.
Running out of toilet paper will make everyone kill themselves , if they survive who cleans the crap out of spacesuits ordeal , close call which will be first . They cannot even wash there own clothes on a 150 billion ISS lol .
I had a friend trying to explain to me that Red Bull has bull sperm as an ingredient because it has Taurine in it which is a component of most meat and fish. I recently came across some click bait thing, that I avoided clicking, explaining that I was eating the wrong type of carbon atoms in my diet.
Some of the water comes from poop
The humble water molecule is well travelled
So we need a machine that turns carbon dioxide into oxygen. So a plant. We need to make an artificial plant.
yes but no
Pretty much what we need on earth
It's about efficiency if we can do it faster than plants we will.
seems like a paradox that forests are burning at a rate so bad lately we need to efficiently go to another planet to be better than what we had
what? the forest are shrinking sure but we still got plenty for now.@@benjaminjones5744
Anyone who plays the "Surviving Mars" computer game soon realizes that the least stressful way of surviving Mars is to take no people until the place is built up by the machines like a massive holiday resort. Not having to worry about people freezing to death, dying of thirst, suffocating, or just going insane is a big weight off your mind.
A day in that game is messured as a year tho....so 150-300 years to taraform the planet, plus we dont have any of the tech unlocked in our reaility...our trillions of dollars...all we got is a rocket that can get there..
Not practical.
Those chemical oxygen generators (also known as oxygen candles) are also used on submarines and on aircraft as emergency oxygen supplies. Submarines get most of their oxygen from electrolysis, usually having a pair of electrolysers - one is actually enough most of the time, but they have two as a backup. The oxygen generators are only used if the electrolyser sources are offline for whatever reason. They are also quite dangerous, partially because they get so hot in operation but also because the sodium chlorate is a powerful oxidiser. They are basically big sparklers - the mix contains just enough iron powder to sustain the combustion and generate enough heat to decompose the excess sodium chlorate into oxygen. The other danger comes from accidental contamination - there have been several incidents where one of these oxygen candles got contaminated with oil or grease, and then subsequently detonating when ignited, killing several unfortunate submariners.
The same devices are used as the emergency oxygen generators on commercial aircraft: If cabin pressure is lost during a flight and those oxygen masks drop from the panels above your seat, this is where the oxygen comes from - when you pull on the mask, the string pulls the trigger on the igniter which starts the oxygen flow. The reason these are used is because they are much lighter weight than compressed oxygen cylinders, which is an important consideration for aircraft. They typically produce oxygen for about 20 minutes, which is enough time for the pilots to take the plane down to an altitude where extra oxygen isn't needed any more.
There was a quite famous (or infamous) incident where a plane was transporting a load of oxygen generators to be decommissioned in the forward cargo compartment. They were supposed to have been deactivated (by removing the ignition triggers) but whoever was supposed to do that forgot to. One of them ignited and set off a chain reaction, igniting most of the rest and filling the cargo compartment with oxygen, causing an intense fire in flight. The fire burned through the avionics bay above the compartment and caused the plane to crash - but the pilots didn't think it could have been a fire at the time since a fire in a cargo compartment at altitude should not have been possible - it was only the boosted oxygen level from the oxygen generators which made it possible. This was only worked out retrospectively after the crash, and was one of the weirdest crash investigations ever done.
The Everglades crash.
Fu Lloyd
Excellent information. Thank you for your reply.
I had not plan on reading and learning that much...glad I did😌
Wonder if mentour pilot covered it...
Thank you Prof. Miles, it is actually the first time I see a proper explanation of the Moxie device installed on the Perseverance Rover.
Greetings,
Anthony
The Martian atmosphere may be 95% CO2 but the atmosphere is very thin, meaning 95% doesn’t equate to a lot in a thin atmosphere. Two large, mature trees can provide enough oxygen from CO2 to provide for a family of four but you’d have to water them, keep them in a warm environment and capture the oxygen somehow.
during the night most trees' process flips btw and they'll need oxygen at that moment.
Also they'll need particular nutrients from the soil, which are absent on Mars.
Before we can talk trees there's allot of preceeding terraforming steps that need to be done I'm afraid brother :(
Quran says: “Allah:there is not God except he”:The Neccessary life/consciousness,sustainer of life/consciousness.”
Wire like neuronal structures that conduct electricity via ions/neurotransmitters in the CNS/PNS possess no attribute of thinking/life and yet that has “randomly” led to life. Consciousness/thinking is an innate idea(“Fitra”)that is distinct from carbon skeleton and yet the materialist scientist believes that chemistry turned into biology via “god of randomness”/”Emergent property”/”law of nature”. Consciousness can only stem from Necessary Consciousness (Allah-one/indivisible/loving/self-sufficient perfection).
@@bluesky45299shut up. We are taking about real things
Initially tanks of photosynthetic algae would probably be a lot easier to manage.
There's a significant misunderstanding of how trees work. Trees use carbon pulled from the atmosphere to create support material, meaning that in order for the tree to convert CO2 to oxygen, it has to take the carbon from the air, combined with water to make CHO chains and release a small amount of oxygen as a waste product. All carbon stored in trees eventually becomes atmospheric carbon again due to decomposition. The reason most of our oxygen comes from the ocean is that, while plankton has the same process of photosynthesis, the carbon that makes their bodies falls down to the bottom of the ocean and is never released again until we discover it as oil. Also I would vary my Google searches more broadly. There's no way two trees could support a family. Finally, I can't be sure, but I'm willing to presume that a tree working under such low atmospheric density would either not survive, or be significantly less efficient in producing waste oxygen through photosynthesis.
Doesn't matter how NASA tries to make oxygen on mars. Mars lacks enough gravity to keep a meaningful layer of atmosphere, constantly losing it to space literally, when combined with the lack of a protective magnetic field from its mostly dead core. Its atmosphere is constantly being stripped away and would be like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it.
Its for using in habs and suits you dummy. No one is talking about terraforming.
Spot on 👍🏻
Just put a great big plastic bag around the planet to keep the oxygen in. Sorted.
Nuke the poles bro it'll work itself out ... or wake up kathulu 👾
I think your missing the point, these technologies are not intended to terra-form mars. They are meant to generate the required recourses for enclosed habitats from the environment that’s already available.
In sci fi novels self sustaining suits are sometimes described. It’s intriguing to imagine the apotheosis of development of such a system - creating a level 3 synthetic micro techno-biosphere bubble around a person that recycles all waste products to sustain life. Is this even physically possible? It’s the food and nutrition aspect that is hardest for me to imagine.
What you're talking about is basically a combination between a space suit, and a still suit from Frank Herbert's Dune. A suit like that could theoretically be worn for weeks, provided it stays in good working order, and you have a very dense power source. With regards to food and nutrition, that should either be available in a situation where you are not dependent on the suit itself, but are travelling in some kind of vehicle (like a ground or flying vehicle), or if it were somehow to be part of the suit, it would have to be incredibly dense in the necessary nutrients, in either a liquid (like soylent), or in a pil or capsule form.
@@fjvmunsterman yeah, food and waste are the hard issues. There's also a pretty cool emergency survival suit in KS Robinson’s 2312 book. I think the characters say you could expect to survive for weeks in space. It had medical care built in too with a suite of drugs and the ability to care for wounds. Also the suit helps you put it on with built in servos. Each suit was an individual AI as well, highly intelligent.
@@charlesblithfield6182 Well, if you could somehow transfer at least the human feces, urine, and the exhaled carbon-dioxide to one spot, and let that pass through some type of miniature bio-filter/reactor system, made up of (perhaps designed ?) micro-organisms, that feed off the waste products (the urea, the feces, and the CO2), while also filtering most of the water for reuse when passing through, and produce some oxygen, and maybe a little heat while doing so (which could then be turned into electricity to be stored), you would all-ready be well on your way. For the water in sweat recovery you would need a separate system, that would connect at the end of that system with what would be the water storage system in the suit. An (active) human being produces on average about a liter of sweat per hour, and between 0.8 to 2 liters of urine per day, which could total up to 26 liters per day in extreme cases (allthough in such a case a good amount of that water would also be reabsorbed during that day by the person inside the suit via fluid intake). Having a built-in medical suite, and a suit A.I. wouldn't hurt either (especially if you were about to kick the bucket for some reason). I recognize the idea of a built-in medical suite from reading "The Forever War" book (and subsequent comic series) by Joe Haldeman, and the suit A.I. from the fairly recent Final Space animated series.
No its not , sci fi is not reality .
As always, energy is the issue. We can (theoretically) currently rearrange particles to make new atoms, but it takes so much energy to do so.
This is how we'll breathe on Mars: Hold your breath quite long.
Awesome explanation, thanks!
Thanks! Glad you liked it!
What i love about Mars is that during summer time even a thin atmosphere at that distance from the Sun could go up to 20C - which is quite a pleasant temp. (ignoring the pressure and composition issues) - which suggest that if the planet could hold onto a thicker atmosphere (magnetic field / gravity) - it could be a pleasant place in the solar system.
It can't, mars has not a strong enough magnetic field, mars cant hold on an atmosphere that could support live, we should care more about our world and not look for other planets
@@fredericelbo9211 i know that :) i even cited them as if it could hold onto it and then listed what it would need.
:)
So disagreement here
I often wonder, how long the atmosphere of Mars takes to disapate into Space via the Sun's Solar Wind's effects. Are we talking centuries or millenium? If the atmosphere were increased by 20%, would it be gone by decades or longer? Is it possible to increase the atmosphere by the amount that is blown off, PLUS an increase to build a stronger atmosphere? What would it take to do that in real time?
@@fredericelbo9211it has nothing to do with magnetic field. Mass/ gravital force is the only thing thats needed to hold the atmosphere. Magnetic field is to protect the possible life from uv and other deadly lightwaves.
@@fredericelbo9211we should do both, new technologies will emerge with the attempt to terraform mars, these new technologies could be used here.
At about 2:00 into the video, you said that that the oxygen is converted to CO2 until the oxygen levels are too support life. That is not what happens. The CO2 levels increases to a level that essentially poisons us to death.
“The rising level of carbon dioxide is what kills people first when they're in an airtight environment, not the level of oxygen,” Dr. Dale Molé, the former director of undersea medicine and radiation health for the U.S. Navy, told The Daily Mail.
Wow. Through the fog of time, I can now make out a self sustaining space suit (after we create tiny, but extremely energy dense power cells to power it on Mars). Thanks for the illumination good Doctor.
Read "The Half Life of a Nuclear Battery" by Phillip Talbert.
@@todaystarr Thanks for the tip. Sounds great.
The problem with that becomes heat disipation on a thin atmosphere. We could try to radiate it, but need to get quite hot, too hot for humans?
@@liam3284 Good point, there is a limit to how much energy can be radiated that is determined by the temperature difference, so the problem may not be so bad when the temperature is very low...
Possibly use infrared transmitters.@@MiniLuv-1984
Great episode. Thanks!
have they figured out how to make a magnetic field my limited scientific mind tells me, atmosphere is a great plus, but the main thing that has to happen is a magnetic field or the Sun’s photons could rip any progress apart in as something as simple and regular as a solar flare. but then again i only stayed in a Holiday Inn express and have now graduated any degrees in astrophysics
The MOXIE is amazing. My favorite part is the girl who designed it went to Michigan Tech and was from a rural town in Wisconsin. It gives me hope that I can do the same when I grow up!
just found this channel n subbed. i liked this video a lot. it felt like a full circle moment back when i was 12 watching science channels and barely understood a thing, now i understood everything you said.
I think we need to thicken Mar's atmosphere somehow first.
That's a great video. Super informative but more importantly it is fun to watch.
If you flip the thumbnail left to right, you could rename it "removing oxygen from earth" and the dates will still work
After 3 billion years of life I suspect almost all water on Earth has been pee of some sort at some point.
Everywhere I go I think it is very likely that this spot has been pee'd on at some point in history hahaha.
4:25 If the percentage of oxygen consumed by methanotrophs isn't too high, it might be possible to use methane-consuming bacteria to use up the methane and convert it into CO2.
Both methods appear to produce carbon monoxide. Is there a use for it?
What else is needed for a habitat's atmosphere? I assume a Martian habitat would operate below one Earth atmosphere. Is it easy to isolate Mars's atmospheric nitrogen to fill a habitat volume?
I would love another video of lunar regolith oxygen extraction.
Acquiring nitrogen would seem to be the next big step, as we need something to reduce the partial pressure of the oxygen. Besides the obvious fire hazard, breathing pure oxygen for too long is extremely bad for the human body.
Since nitrogen is so non-reactive, I think isolating it from the Martian atmosphere would be more a matter of removing the CO2 and retaining what's left over, rather than some chemical process.
Carbon monoxide or dioxide can be used to create methane as a byproduct. COx to CH4 am I right?
Spacex's starship's primary fuel is methane if I understand it correctly.
@@joythoughtif you've water and CO2 you can make rocket fuel for the starship. Whilst this video hand waves away the water issue, extracting water will be one of the primary first steps of human colonisation of the red planet.
@@joythought Google "Mars Direct".
It still amazes me that someone actually figured this out
So what about plants? I’ve seen videos about photosynthesis and how they actually do it and end up making oxygen, but it’s very complicated. What exact mechanism do plants use and can we recreate that with technology or it is something that is probably only possible with biology? I know plants can’t live on mars lol in so many ways but i’m just thinking about this mechanically. Time to go relearn photosynthesis again, I guess. Good video!
As I understand it, while a plant is receiving light and growing it is sequestering carbon atoms and turning them into leaves and releasing oxygen. So if I think back to the movie "The Martian" where the character Mark Watney grew potatoes his potato plants would have been releasing oxygen during the daytime. There are some plants such as cactus that have another photosynthesis process that works 24 hours a day.
It's important to note that while photosynthesis is a crucial process for life on Earth, it's also very inefficient compared technological solutions.
The beauty of using photosynthesis, however, isn't that it's better than the solutions we came up with so far, but that it works without much need for human intervention.
Plants and algae in particular are great, because they solve many problems for us: they produce oxygen, they provide food, and they recycle our waste products. It's hard to try and artificially recreate a system that can do all that plus repair itself and adapt to changes in its environment.
Well, creating a poisonous gas like carbon monoxide along with the oxygen you want to breathe is kinda of a problem. I assume they were able to separate these? Pity about the carbon coating the device, could have made it more effective at providing oxygen on a mission. Maybe it needs a solvent stage?
I thought that the problem with terraforming Mars was about the weak magnetic field that makes maintaining atmosphere a problem. In addition, is the magnetic field not important as protection from radiation? Is there a way to alter or strengthen the magnetic field?
There is a way yes.
But that way is to 1) make the planet spin faster (good luck with that)
And/or 2) gather so much energy that you can remelt the core of the planet and make it molten again. (Also good luck with that)
So unless you’re basically god, you’re gonna be doing a whole lot of nothing.
3) build a massive electro magnet out at Mars 1 Lagrange point. It would take a few tens of thousands of tonnes worth of copper and one or two nuclear reactors of power. Far more doable.@@DoubleU159
@@DoubleU159 so basically no...hahaha
@@eabutler6861 well an atomic bomb can melt a small city, so get a few million really big ones and drop them down a hole to the centre of the planet?
@@DoubleU159 how much would that cost?.....hahaha.....we don't live in star trek my dude
The first step is to regenerate an electrical field around Mars. There is no sense in creating an atmosphere unless you can protect it, to keep the sun from boiling it off. And to protect anyone living there.
Elon should be reminded that Mars lost its atmosphere for a reason. You cant just start pumping O2 om the planet and expect it to stay put.
Do you know that earth loses its atmosphere too? Or that the moon is moving away from earth each year?
@@idk-ex9ce
Yes to both.
But unless earth loses its magnetic field it will retain its atmosphere of heavier gasses.
I'm curious how you think the moon is involved this?
@@georges3799 There are proposals that could work theoretically to give Mars a sustainable magnetosphere. One such is heating the core of Mars by using nuclear material or other methods. This proposal came from recent studies of NASA that suggests that Mars has a liquid iron core like earth too.
@@idk-ex9ce
That's pure sci-fi at this point. The amount of money it would take would be astronomical and frankly would be a colossal waste of resources. This kind of thing would take 100s of generations to accomplish. Just like his vacuum subway, Elon is selling vaporware again.
We can create a less hostel atmosphere either way it's being stripped away. I've read papers that suggested ways to make an atmosphere on Mars and would take something like 150,000 years to strip away without any magnetic field so the horse can come after the cart in this
Oxygen is nice and all… but what to do about the deadly solar radiation without a magnetic field…
Mars is excellent for human's to make a second home. It's not as bad as some may think.
yeah, these dreamers need to be reminded of that fact. its silly to think mankind is mature enough to go to another world, create a biosphere and keep from destroying it like we do here daily on Earth.
@@michaelfried3123 No one but you mentioned creating a biosphere. The video talks about creating oxygen for a mars mission.
@@RasakBlood I realize that, but I did say we'd need to take everything if we go. Didn't I? And why go if we can't stay? Can't robots continue to find stuff for us for far less risk and price? And if humans go, why not stay? Just to say we went? Seems like a waste of time and money, if we go just for bragging rights. How many roads and bridges do we build on Earth instead of just using the money for bragging rights?
@@michaelfried3123There's 100 million world's for humanity just in our galaxy alone ,stop stressing
@@Toddhull6185 how about we figure out how to not destroy our first home before we worry about going somewhere else to destroy any more? its not much to ask.
wow, that was information dense and totally out of my comfort zone of knowledge, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it and was explained very well, thanks for sharing
So why did mars lose its atmosphere. Have they forgotten
Is mars stupid?
Im pretty sure they know. But maybe you should tell them, just incase they forgot
@@dv9239Being forgetful does not equate stupid broooo don't be mean to Mars like that
Nope magnetic field lose caused this
It lost its activity in its core and essentially its shield from radioactive waves from the sun ( magnetic feild ) the sun killed Mars
so how can you KEEP it there when mars core and magnetic field are almost dead??
What a charming idea to waste Earth’s natural resources to make a SMALL and absurdly hostile location a bit less lethal. Logic leaves the chat - profit enters.
I love how you didn’t even watch the video before commenting. To give a tldr(or Tldw) it was a video on how to do stuff in inhospitable environment, mostly mars, that you can reuse the resources, from reusing what you brought to mars to living off of the compounds on mars. Also anyone with half a brain would understand that you can’t just carry enough “natural resources” to deplete earths supply, and if your talking about the national economy, nasa gets payed a tenth of a penny per tax dollar so no this has nothing to do with “wasting earths natural resources” and I see no profit for a lone company in doing this, governments do this to advance humans and maybe a little trying to out do other governments but it has nothing to do with profit
Making oxygen on Mars wouldn't be the hard part. KEEPING it in the atmosphere without a functioning magnetosphere is the hard part.
Since human life requires Earth's Gravity or we die in just over a year. I don't see a Mars or colony anywhere else until that issue is solved. Creating oxygen anywhere in the universe is child's play.
It doesn't make a difference if we can make oxygen on Mars. That is the easy part of the problem, the real problem is stopping the sun solar wind from removing the oxygen. Mars doesn't have a strong enough magnet field to deflect the solar winds to protect the air sphere. Tht doesn't mean we don't have the ability to build building to live in or use, but that isn't really the same.
The lunar radio telescope is just a proposal. You made it sound like they’ve decided to build it.
Starfield has got me watching videos like this. I love video games but I equally love space and technology. All this stuff is fascinating to me.
For me the other way around. I always loved watching these kinds of videos but starfield was like a dream come true.
If you were in a sealed barrel, the build-up of carbon dioxide would kill you before you used up half the oxygen.
So, you would not die by running out of oxygen.
I would really like it if Elon Musk went to Mars. I don't know why he is taking so long but I am convinced that the world would be a better place if Elon Musk was on Mars.
wow so you have discovered how to add enough mass to increase the gravity and enough water vapor containing gas to hold heat in an atmosphere and also to how create a martian geo magnetic field to deflect solar particles to protect it. !?
now thats sci fi!
Can I put a plug in here for a more direct route? Mars air actually contains molecular oxygen. Sure, it's only 0.13% but once you remove the carbon dioxide (96%) the remaining gas stream is actually 3% oxygen. Carbon dioxide is relatively easy to extract - it will freeze or liquefy at modestly low temperatures/pressures. The trick is maintaining overall efficiency. In other words regaining the energy you put into the CO2 extraction. Here's one way to do this:
Start with Martian air. Filter, compress. Cool the air and further compress, yielding liquid CO2 and a gas stream. Take this liquid CO2 and apply a heat source (nuclear + waste heat from the compression processes). The liquid CO2 turns into high pressure supercritical CO2. Now run a turbine to create electricity, expanding the CO2 and exhausting it back to the ambient air. Some of this electricity runs your gas processing plant. Some will power your Mars base. Here's the really nice bit. You don't need huge radiators (the bane of big nuclear power sources on Mars) since the heat is exhausted along with the working fluid (CO2).
Now, you've got a manageable stream of what is mostly nitrogen, argon, oxygen and carbon monoxide. You use well understood thermodynamic processes (cooling, compression, phase change and fractional distillation) and you have nitrogen for life support (essential), argon (useful for cleaning and can be used as a buffer gas) and of course oxygen.
The other nice bit is low temperatures and simple, rugged equipment.
And if you're really clever you'll also capture the trace of water vapour (some tens of parts per million) sufficient to life support makeup.
Fascinating stuff! Thank you!!
Awesome video! 🎉😊
I know how incredibly impractical it is... but.... we need to figure out ROV's that can grab asteroids high in water content and crash them into Mars. That, combined with inoculating Mars with bacteria and other life forms that can generate oxygen, is the quickest way to generate an atmosphere.
I think we are still far away from anything that is viable. The biggest problems on this come down to 1) energy requirements, 2) weight and 3) cost. To solve all of these requires new and currently unknown tech. It all comes down to the development of a safe, low cost, high capacity, light weight energy source.
Or, mining, processing, and production in space to remove the requirement to launch everything out of Earth's atmosphere and full gravity well.
How would you keep the carbon monoxide from leaking out with the desired oxygen? Can you really separate them with something resembling 100% effectiveness?
My question is who will have authority to determine how and what happens on mars… will it be legal to behave however you see fit…?
Starts with extremely not to scale cartoon of the martian atmosphere.
"If" we could constantly pump air around mars, would it "Stick around"? Is half the Earth's gravity enough? If so, what would make it dissipate? There was water and air there before we presume, what happened to that atmosphere?
Mars lost its magnetic field. Its core cooled off too much to act as a magnetic dynamo like the core of the earth. Without a magnetosphere, solar winds can blow off the atmosphere.
If we found a way to oxygenate Mars's atmosphere, it would still be at risk from the solar wind. But there is still an atmosphere there currently. And humanity is resourceful. I'm not sure how we could make an artificial magnetosphere. And I don't know if it is even possible to warm up Mars's core. But if we could pump the right chemicals into Mars's upper atmosphere, we could attempt to use said chemicals to try and deflect the solar wind and radiation.
12:17 It is to allow the animals cross water like the ocean or a river. The chicken can stand on the dog. The cat can hold on to the dog and only have its head out the water.
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12:45 Man, even IPCC report claims that further increase in CO2 levels will have nigh-zero impact on the climate. i.e. doubling of CO2 to 800ppm would cause about 0.06*C increase in global temperatures by 2100 which is essentially untraceable in a complex chaotic system like climate.
End all be all, a breakdown, the most efficient way to make the air breathable is some kind of generator (similar to Moxy) that converts Mars atmosphere into what we breath on Earth, stored, then breathed inside closed environments. LTPs too?
I highly encourage anyone interested to investigate atmospheric CO2 concentration. Consider the following questions; 1. What is the ideal CO2 concentration to support photosynthesis? 2. What is the minimum before plants die? 3. What is the maximum CO2 concentration in the past (prior to the 800k years most "studies" span)?
For some climate related entertainment look up John Kerry trying to address the answer to number 3 before Congress. It tells you all you need to know.
Don't get me wrong... I'm all for reducing "pollution" and getting away from "combustibles" to generate power. I just don't appreciate being blatantly lied to to accomplish some largely anonymous, unaccountable group's "goals", regardless of what those goals may be.
Peace.
PS, also consider what it must be like to work in a field where you must "conform-or-be-fired". Ask any "climate scientist" for the answer.
@@user-rs3lm1ci6nreally? You might want to look that up. Sceptically. Use your brain. A strong case can be made that atmospheric CO2 concentration actually follows temperature, instead of the other way around. Think about it... also consider that it has been "proven" by folks that will lose their jobs if they don't tow the line. Look up professor Ian Clark, et. al., for more, if you really care about the subject.
And, if you are serious, answer the three questions posed above. For yourself - not because you want to "go along to get along".
I would guess that you and I agree on 90+% of things that really matter. Please consider that you might be being lied to, and, if you conclude that you are being lied to, respond accordingly.
Peace.
@@user-rs3lm1ci6nWhat you've apparently assumed, based on your reply, is completely incorrect.
Best wishes to you.
Take care,
j.
@@user-rs3lm1ci6nI'll ignore the patronage... But, I highly encourage you to answer the three questions I initially posed. For yourself. I can point you to good resources if you like. Talk to me, my friend. I'm not spending my time trying to insult you...
Peace.
As an aside; do you know where Plymouth Rock is? It's in exactly the same place, surrounded by the roughly the same sea-level, that was there when Columbus first encountered it. FYI. Even if the climate does change, which it will, human beings are capable of adapting to their environment. Save for a disaster, such changes do not happen overnight (historically). Do you want to live in a Teepee and ride bikes for the rest of your life? Think about it... it's an agenda. Wake up.
Good talking to you. I'm gonna go smoke some more crack, if you don't mind... 😀. Kidding (maybe?).
Why isn't the waste methainbe used as rocket fuel to reestablish orbit or for the fuel used during space walks. Also there is little point terriforming Mars, it's too small to hold onto its atmosphere but If you were going to do it in the quantities meeded it would be easier to vacuum up the air from venue, process it to types of emelents needed during the trip to Mars, then pump it out. You might get a more habitable Venue in the process.
I think we should just build arcologies with isolated internal environments that are synthetic ecosystems
Because rockets need a stoichiometric mix of oxygen and fuel, and the oxygen is being used to keep the astronauts breathing.
If you tried to use the spare methane as fuel, you wouldn't have enough oxygen to mix with it and you'd end up lugging around a bunch of useless methane.
@danielfrake114 To get material from Venus to Mars you'd have to overcome Venusian gravity AND add enough velocity to move it away from the sun. It might be easier to get stuff from the asteroid belt or the moons of Jupiter and send it sunward.
Hey, so MOXIE would work GREAT on Venus, huh?
There are so many ways that creating oxygen could benefit us, i just can’t stop coming up with ideas lol
As far as nuclear powered submarines go, the only real limiting factor when it comes to how long you can stay submerged is food. We had no problem making water and oxygen and scrubbing CO2 as long as there was power to run the systems. But of course we had the massive oceans of water we snuck around in to draw from and keep all of that going and sub-optimal planets like Mars do not. I really don't think it's possible to setup a long-term colony/science station on Mars without bringing a LOT of stuff, even if you can achieve self-sustainability eventually.
Has anyone read Red Rising? Awesome series based on Mars...and other places in the distant future.
All in favor of preventing humans who move to Mars from returning to Earth. Say Aye!
0:22
glad I was not the only one appalled by that.
Creating Oxygen is common knowledge in this day and age. The real science that needs to be studied is how to make an atmosphere that will retain that oxygen... Mars needs a magnetic field strength that it does not currently have to create an atmosphere that will retain oxygen.
its going to take more then half a century to give mars a breatherble atmosphere.
Step 1) Create a Moon base
Step 2) Expand the Moon base into a colony
Step 3) Further expand the Moon colony into a self sufficient city with industry and mining operation
Step 4) Build Mars rockets and equipment on the Moon
Step 5) repeat step 1 to 3 on Mars
Step 6) start the terraforming
You could theoretically break-up the CO2 molecules using extremely intense, high-frequency sound waves by way of acoustic resonance
Just need a Megadeth concert on Mars.
Hahaha!
We've "lost the information which put a man on the moon" (which is on our doorstep) but we have multiple rovers and helicopters beaming HD images back from Mars which is 33 million miles away ........ yeah, right.
33? hmmmmm
We talking Abt making oxygen on other planets but could barely keep oxygen on this planet,humanity get your shyt together
But can you fix the planets magnetosphere?
''what if we forget going to mars for now and focus on fixxing our current planet''
Seems like bioengineering algae or something similar to survive on Mars would be a good option. Technology should be at that level within a century or so.
way less than a century. We are already using algae tech now. A couple of decades of dedicated research would probably be more than sufficient to get us to a "mars solution" from where we are now. We just need someone to decide to do that dedicated research.
@@FlesHBoX I was giving a large margin since it may take serious gene editing to accomplish. Radiation is the biggest hurdle since there are plenty of nutrients, sunlight, and co2.
@@The1stDukeDroklarTrue, the radiation is going to end up being a big issue no doubt. Though, presumably we would be growing the algae in an environment where we can also survive, so maybe it will end up a non-issue, since we need to solve that for us anyways.
@@FlesHBoX Ah, see I was talking about algae or something that can convert co2 to o2 while living on the surface without the need for a controlled environment.
@@The1stDukeDroklarOh, yeah, that would be more along the lines of terraforming Mars, which I certainly agree, we are looking at at least a century before that's out of the realm of scifi
What makes you think you can create an atmosphere on a planet with no magnetosphere? Even if you could, the radiation from the sun would kill everyone anyway
No, no one has tried it yet, we've seen movies and shows, until we send humans it's mostly speculation!
An even bigger issue is maintaining the 79% Nitrogen to have a breathable atmosphere you cant live in a pure Oxygen atmosphere; leakage and breach of pressurised containment pose an equally. Critical element. We need to be working on a process that does both. Separate out the Co2 CO and methane from the 2.7% Nitrogen, then split Co2 into usable Oxygen and eliminate the Co, which has a greater affinity to haemoglobin. There are a few methods all very energy-intensive.
You will need 6m3 O2 per day for an 8-man team metabolic plus additional depending on leakage due to seals and every time you go outside your habitat, which will be 0.6m2 in a 3m3 lock for example.
You will also need 2.3m3 to replace the nitrogen lost per entry/exit.
Nitrogen leakage may be 15m3 at 5% by volume in a 300m3 habitat plus 3m3 Oxygen. so to maintain a 300m habitat you effectively need 10m3 per day of Oxygen and 18m3 of Nitrogen as a minimum for one Lock cycle per day and Habitat pressure maintenance.
1. Production and Management of Oxygen and Nitrogen:
Oxygen: As per your estimation, 10 m³ of oxygen is needed daily. This could potentially be produced by splitting CO₂ (a plentiful resource on Mars) using processes like electrolysis or the Sabatier reaction. The latter also produces methane, which could be used as a fuel or further processed.
Nitrogen: The requirement is to produce 18 m³ of nitrogen daily. The primary source is the Martian atmosphere, though it's only 2.7% nitrogen. Efficient extraction and processing methods are essential.
2. Technological Solutions:
Electrolysis: For splitting CO₂ into oxygen and carbon monoxide. The CO can then be further processed or used in other chemical reactions.
Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) and Membrane Technology: For separating nitrogen from the Martian atmosphere and from other gases like CO and methane.
Sabatier Reaction: To produce methane and water from CO₂ and hydrogen, followed by electrolysis of water to generate additional oxygen.
3. Energy Requirements:
These processes are energy-intensive, necessitating a robust and reliable energy infrastructure on Mars. Solar power, nuclear power, or a combination thereof might be required.
4. Leakage and Containment:
Addressing leakage is critical. This involves not only having highly reliable habitat construction but also efficient recycling and replenishment systems for lost gases.
Advanced monitoring systems would be needed to detect and quantify leakage in real-time, allowing for prompt corrective actions.
5. Resource Recycling and Reuse:
Implementing a Closed Loop Life Support System that recycles air, water, and other resources to reduce the need for constant production.
Biological systems, like plants in a greenhouse, could assist in maintaining oxygen levels and could also play a role in nitrogen cycling.
6. Safety and Redundancy:
Systems must be designed with multiple redundancies and safety measures to handle unexpected failures or breaches.
Emergency supplies of oxygen and nitrogen, possibly in compressed or liquefied form, could be stored for use in case of a critical system failure.
7. Research and Development:
Continuous R&D will be crucial for improving the efficiency of these processes, developing new technologies, and ensuring the long-term sustainability of the habitat. The energy balance is critical. Solar may be challenging as dust storms may last months making solar unusable. Due to the thin atmosphere, even strong winds on Mars carry much less energy compared to Earth. Therefore, a wind turbine on Mars would produce significantly less power than a similar turbine on Earth under the same wind conditions.
In reality, Neuclear may be the only viable reliable power source which poses its own challenges.
Setting up a nuclear reactor on Mars would require careful planning. The infrastructure for a nuclear power plant is complex and requires a lot of materials and specialized equipment.
Remote or autonomous installation might be necessary, given the harsh and dangerous environment.
Cooling Systems:
Unlike Earth, Mars lacks large bodies of water and has a thin atmosphere, which makes cooling a nuclear reactor more challenging.
Advanced cooling systems, possibly using radiative cooling or engineered heat sinks, would be necessary.
Maintenance and Repairs:
The reactor must be designed for high reliability with minimal maintenance, considering the difficulty in sending repair crews or parts from Earth.
Robotics and automation would play a crucial role in maintenance.
One breakdown and you are toast
Protection from solar radiation will be crucial in longterm colonisation with shielding a critical factor to protect against not just radiation al affect on people but to shield critical electronics form electromagnetic damage from solar flares as Using electronics designed to withstand radiation ('rad-hard' electronics) is crucial. These are already used in satellites and space probes.
In summary, maintaining a balanced and breathable atmosphere on Mars is a complex challenge that requires a combination of advanced technology, robust engineering, and continuous innovation. It involves efficiently producing and recycling oxygen and nitrogen, managing energy needs, and ensuring the integrity and safety of the habitat's atmosphere against leaks and other losses.
This is really interesting and an excellent video Sir. We often forget though that we also need inert Nitrogen to mix the oxygen with so things don't just oxidise, degrade or catch fire? I believe the ISS is at 1 atmosphere and nitrogen is shipped there? Most other space craft are about 1/3 atmosphere. It's still amazing to me that the tragedy of Apollo 1 was caused by a pure oxygen atmosphere at just above 1 atm, something I remember from school of how reactive pure oxygen is. So to colonise permanently long term we need about 78% Nitrogen, a 4:1 ratio with Oxygen, preferably an inert gas that doesn't smell ;-). And plants, to grow food, must have CO2 and sunlight, and you need humidity. It seems vastly complicated.
How do you keep the oxygen in the atmosphere without dissipating thigh the weak atmosphere? How, without thickening the anisotropic, would we keep the heat in the atmosphere in order that any octet generators could maintain or live?
ice is abundant on Mars as new studies have shown, the is even ice on the equator in the Valles Marinaris, an excellent colony site as well
information 7:43, 7:46 the only ice on mars, polar or sub-surface, is solid CO2.!
Fully interesting! Thank You!
Thanks. If you apply first principles thinking, life support systems of the future will just replicate the role of plants in a small compact space. Simplifying, we consume oxygen and glucose for energy, and just need an energy source to convert the water and CO₂ back to glucose.
The only reason this is not being done is because here on earth it’s easier to grow plants for food and nobody is willing to research another way.
What about nitrogen? You might not need to replenish it the same way you need to with oxygen but if there's say a leak of your contained atmosphere how would you replace it?
Use the nuclear atmosphere generator, I saw it on Total recall. Careful though, your head could explode.
Ha haaa
Mars would be great for industrial work to reduce pollution here, because pollution there is actually good 👨🔬🚀
I don't think Mars has enough gravity to hold on to an atmosphere
Im just curious why they need to extract oxygen from the very thin atmosphere while the soil is full of iron oxide and other stuff probably containing oxygen. Can't they extract oxygen from melting the iron oxide to iron and oxygen? Im sure the iron will be useful for building material anyway. Is that even possible?
Yes probably needs both
By taking the H2 from two water molecules from the subsurface glaciers on Mars and combining with the single carbon from CO2 to make methane rocket fuel, there would be two O2 molecules left to serve as oxidizer for the rocket and some could be used for hermetic living and working spaces. However, to achieve an Earthilike atmosphere for humans and indoor agriculture, a nitrogen source must be found. Mars atmosphere is ~3% nitrogen so what plans are there for harvesting it to combine with oxygen for habitable spaces?
You compress the atmosphere like they're already doing in the test. You cool the compressed gas through a radiator, then let it expand into another chamber. The expansion will cool it enough to turn the CO2 into dry ice (this is how it is done on Earth!) and the Nitrogen will remain as a gas. You can do this in multiple stages to get colder and colder until you get liquid Helium. Most processors stop at liquid Nitrogen because it's commercially viable and many other gasses will liquify earlier. If you leave a big Dewar of liquid Nitrogen open, Oxygen will condense into it and you have to be very careful not to dump it on anything remotely flammable. It's a nice pale blue color, so at least you can tell when it has built up. The process is energy intensive, so it would be good to have the array of orbiting solar panels with microwave power beaming to the surface in place first.
It's fascinating how we can't event reduce the 1% CO2 in our atmosphere in our planet, where we all live and breathe... yet we beleive we can transform the atmosphere of another planet where no human has set foot, where the atmosphere is more than 90% CO2, 0% Oxygen, and atmospheric pressure 100 times thinner than that of earth.
It’s a long-term hypothetical concept. Terraforming isn’t about simply removing the CO2 and adding oxygen. It would be a multi-step process that could take centuries or millennia.
@@ballskin or might never happen
@@tntg5 Nothing drives us more than survival. On a cosmic scale, we're not going to last long on Earth.
The idea of having an atmosphere on Mars is somewhat silly, there is a reason it does not and that is its escape velocity. Earth's escape velocity is just enough to keep the atmosphere more or less intact, but Mars' is not. End of discussion, unless you add a lot more mass to Mars... There just happens to be some spare mass in the asteroid belt which is not far away. So you are stuck inside a structure of some kind.
Thing is, we also breath in Nitrogen. Where we get nitric oxide in our bodies
Remembering a sci fi series of books about Mars. They terraformed, and had seeded the entire planet with little oxygen producers. But, even if you started enriching the planet Mars with Oxy? Would it stay on Mars? I heard that the Martian atmosphere was stripped away by forces? Gravity not strong enough to keep gases trapped on surface?
idk.
MOXIE is pretty exciting, but for me the thought of taking the Martian atmosphere and turning the CO2 into CO is pretty disturbing. Would it be possible to extract oxygen from the regolith? It seems to me that in a fairly stable CO2 based atmosphere, oxidised minerals (well, CO2 is oxidised carbon) are likely to remain as they are, because they won't easily combine with CO2. Grinding up regolith for minerals and oxygen, surely would have multiple benefits including the opportunity to thicken up the atmosphere (cf KSR's Red / Green / Blue Mars trilogy).
I am pretty solid on the notion that Mars will be something for our next humanoid iteration: Homo artificialis.
If a planet a quarter the size of Mars (such as Pluto) replaced Photoe and Demos its gravity could reawaken the magnetic field of Mars which would protect the atmosphere from being stripped away by the solar wind. Nitrogen ice and Water ice could be used to terraform the atmosphere to resemble Earth's air supply.
I am sure that NASA would be more into make it before you get there and keep on doing it.
Could you use electrostatic to keep the MOXY from coking in the same way you would use it to keep dust from building up?
It may be possible to use geothermal power to generate the power you would need.
You would need to drill deep but the new plasma drills could do the job rather quickly.
This could be powered by a Methalox generator to power the drill long enough to dig the hole.
One thing that amazes me is why NASA does not use electrostatic mesh to keep it's solar panels free of dust. Why is that I wonder?
Low temperature plasma to separate the molecules sounds like a great idea. I wonder if you can also do this with sound waves?
Without a magnetic field, any artificial atmosphere would soon get stripped away by the Solar wind.
If we built a storage container we could just keep filling it with liquid oxygen so that when we finally get there we have a good supply of Oxygen, Hydrogen,
Next time we send a robot to mars.
We need to bring seeds.
Trees, plants, crops
I just noticed the ISS water spigot is labeled "rehydration station". Lol i reckon some engineer was having fun with that one.
It is very attractive to envision human habitation on the surface of Mars, but frankly two large permanent space station repair and construction O'Neill Cylinders, one at a Lagrange point somewhere in the Earth-Moon system and another orbiting Mars (although the Mars station could arguably be better as a base on the Mars side of Phobos rather than an O'Neill Cylinder), ideally coupled with a Mars Cycler or two would be a much more reasonable first step. The Mars Cyclers make the trip to Mars and back much more energy efficient and the permanent bases outside of deep gravity wells provide for a source of repairs, spare parts, equipment, etc. for either the surface colony on Mars or for repair and upkeep of the Mars Cyclers.
Thank you, again!