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NASA’s experiment with MOXIE to produce Oxygen on Mars

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It may take a long time for astronomers to arrive at Mars-NASA talking about early 2030s, as Elon Musk of SpaceX has promised soon. But when people do, they can find a replacement for MOXIE waiting for them. Workers coming to Mars may be able to have their own equipment in their air conditioning system, which is why the main problem is to solve and make the equipment they need to go home. “If you want to burn fat, you need fresh air to burn it,” says Hecht.

Hecht estimates that a group of four people would need about 1.5 tons of oxygen a year to help, but 25 tons of it would produce 7 tons of rocket fuel. The simplest thing is to send an emergency machine six months in advance so that experts can have fresh air. It also means they will have fewer weapons in the world. Hecht said: “It would not be difficult to bring in enough equipment to produce 25 tons of carbon dioxide.

The same calculation is calculated as a lunar anticipation, which can happen much faster than a trip to Mars. Teams from NASA and ESA are trying to warm up the moon’s atmosphere, called regolith, in order to capture its atmosphere. Instead, regolith is 45% oxygen its weight, made up of metals such as silicon, aluminum, calcium, magnesium, iron, and titanium, according to Beth Lomax, a medical student at the University of Glasgow and a researcher at ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Center in Noordwijk, Netherlands.

Lomax and Alexandre Meurisse, colleagues at the research site, have been developing a regolith welding device in a jar containing dissolved salt to release its air. As a MOXIE project, they use electricity to separate air and other substances. But unlike MOXIE, it has a source: metal objects that can be useful in making the moon. (Instead, another group in the ESA is looking at mergers astronaut pee and regolith to make reconstructed geopolymer-like materials similar to ash.)

Lomax says it makes sense to know how to use what has been happening in the month, instead of breaking it on Earth. “In terms of space and longevity it seems to be achievable, the use of resources will be important,” says Lomax. “It would be impossible for us to bring every kilogram of material we need into the world. We have a huge well, and we need energy to replenish these resources in the atmosphere.”

Using a container of dissolved salt, Lomax and Meurisse reduce the temperature needed to release air into the soil, dropping it from 1,600 degrees Celsius (2,912 Fahrenheit) to 600 C (1,112 F). That heat can reach Considering solar energy, a method already established in solar power in the southwestern United States.

At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, researchers are considering how to dispose of metal products found in a glass jar containing regolith for electrolysis. This is important because solvents are highly corrosive, and both metal and gas have to be released in some way, according to NASA researcher Kevin Grossman. The goal is to melt regolith without touching all parts of the container. “If you take a bucket of regolith, and you want to melt the amount of golf in the middle of it, how do you get there?” Grossman asks.

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