NASA: “We’re Going to Try and Make Oxygen From the Atmosphere on Mars”
SMALL STEPS FOR MAN
Getting to Mars is the biggest space project this generation
will ever see, that is until we actually land people on the red planet. Such a
bold endeavor has a cornucopia of nitty-gritty details to iron out, in one way
or another, before proceeding with a manned mission. The most obvious is the
need to build rockets and spacecraft able to ferry probes and people. For
NASA’s mission to Mars, this also entails the construction of a lunar space
station that’ll serve as a jump-off point to the rest of the solar system.
Speaking to Futurism after the successful launch of SpaceX’s
CRS-12 mission on Monday, NASA Acting Chief Administrator Robert Lightfoot, Jr.
explained how getting to Mars requires small, incremental steps. “When you look
at our plans today [for getting to Mars], we use the International Space
Station as much as we can…for example, our life support systems, we test them
up there.” He added that the Moon would be the next logical step in this
process.
But getting to Mars and surviving there are two disparate
yet equally important aspects of the same mission. “We try and make sure that,
when we do a science mission or a human spaceflight mission, that we have a
cross between the science and the human exploration,” Lightfoot explained.
MAKING LIFE POSSIBLE
Now no one wants to fly to Mars, land on the ground, yawp “I
did it!”, turn around and head home. Space exploration is more than symbolic
pretense. We want to stay on Mars and install a colony. Of course, the eventual
plan is to terraform Mars, but that could take thousands of years to accomplish
— if it’s at all possible. So, in Lightfoot’s mind, we ought to start small,
and there’s nothing more basic for survival on Mars (or anywhere) than having a
secure source of air to breathe. “The next lander that is going to Mars, Mars
2020, has an experiment where we are going to try and actually generate oxygen
out of the atmosphere on Mars, clearly that’s for human capability down the road,”
Lightfoot said.
What we know is that the Red Planet’s atmosphere is thinner
than Earths, with some 95.32 percent carbon dioxide, 2.7 percent nitrogen, 1.6
percent argon, and about 0.13 oxygen, plus a bunch of other elements in even
smaller amounts. By contrast, the Earth’s atmosphere has 78 percent nitrogen
and 21 percent oxygen. Water won’t be much of a problem, though.
Is it possible to make oxygen from Mar’s atmosphere? NASA’s had plans for this since 2014, when it
first revealed the Mars 2020 Rover. It involves bringing some microbial life to
Mars, perhaps bacteria or algae, that would would use Martian soil as fuel and
then pump out oxygen as a product. The oxygen could then be harnessed and made
available for breathing and also to make rocket fuel for return flights to
Earth.
It may sound like science fiction right now, but lab
experiments have shown that it’s possible. That’s why the Mars 2020 Rover
mission is crucial. Other efforts to make Mars habitable include plans of
building a magnetic shield around the planet, similar to Earth’s, building a
nuclear reactor, as well as growing potatoes like in Matt Damon in The Martian.
