NASA just successfully produced oxygen on Mars that shocks Elon Musk on Mars a lunchbox sized
machine is producing oxygen that shock SpaceX CEO Elon Musk NASA could enable future humans to
breathe on Mars by developing the technology how promising is this technology will this change the
plane of the tech billionaire to colonize Mars well let's find out hello everyone and welcome
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it will be necessary for Humanity to obtain oxygen from somewhere if they ever travel to
Mars the oxygen content of the atmosphere on the red planet is minuscule at 0.16 percent
compared to the Earth's atmosphere which is 21 oxygen there might be a chance to produce
more of the breathable gas on Mars now owing to a lunchbox-sized experiment on NASA's perseverance
Rover according to a research published last week in the journal science advances that
Gadget effectively synthesized oxygen from the Martian atmosphere in seven distinct experiments
carried out in 2021 they would require oxygen to breathe if astronauts were to go to Mars according
to Vices Sarah Wells they would also require the gas to power the Rockets it would bring them back
to Earth in an email device project leader and research scientist Michael Hecht stated
that a rocket would require 10 times as much oxygen only for the liftoff to orbit as four
to six astronauts would consume while living on Mars for a whole year as Jeffrey Hoffman
and the Project's Deputy principal investigator explained to proshamu Verma of the Washington
Post NASA could theoretically transfer oxygen from Earth to Mars but it would take numerous
pricey rocket launches Hoffman an aeronautical engineer at MIT and a former NASA astronaut
claims that it would be less expensive to use this technology to produce the oxygen on site
a toaster sized gold-coated device is being carried by a Rover that is roaming around in
a Barren crater just north of the equator on Mars millions of miles distant when the
machine breathes in Martian air it filters out impurities it separates the atmosphere's gas into
its component parts extracts what it needs and then reassembles the mixture to produce oxygen
which is extremely scarce on Mars the kind of air or breathable oxygen we inhale here on Earth
following some analysis the device exhales the oxygen releasing the molecules into the Martian
atmosphere in an unharmed manner in doing so NASA's perseverance Rovers highly Advanced toaster
which is housed inside of it comes the closest to resembling a tiny Tree on Mars it's also an
exceptionally decent tree claimed the researchers who created the little device the Mars oxygen and
situ resource utilization experiment or Moxie for short as consistently produced oxygen gas from
Martian air which is almost completely composed of carbon dioxide the Project's leader Michael
heads a planetary scientist at mit's Haystack Observatory sold in a report a little dog will
do just fine at the pace we produce we're not far from being able to manufacture oxygen at the rate
that would sustain the human person this chemistry experiment called Moxie is ingenious in terms of
the history of space exploration it's also an historic event making advantage of the Martian
environment's resources rather than bringing everything they require from Earth is necessary
if humans are to establish a permanent settlement on the planet this is the first time we've been
able to develop in demonstrate the technology to do so NASA scientist Jennifer Heitman told me we
have to be able to live off the land she added furthermore oxygen is amazingly versatile not
only might it keep people alive on a planet that the lugs weren't made for but it could also be
combined with other substances to make rocket fuel allowing them to travel back to Earth the aliens
on Mars are us to even give future astronauts a chance to survive there let alone live happily we
would need to invent all kinds of things it almost seems science fiction yet by messing with Mars's
atmosphere we that is humankind have managed to figure out at least one aspect of that quest after
perseverance landed and began working toward its primary objective collecting Rocky samples that
may contain the minute traces of long dead Martian life the Moxie experiments word into action in
February of last year Moxie had its own task cut out for it when now compared to our atmosphere
the Martian atmosphere was so thin that it almost feels like a vacuum heck said I like to say we're
creating oxygen out of thin air if you were a martian you would assume that those of us on
Earth are like fish swimming in a thick soup of atmosphere the atmosphere conditions on Mars also
undergo much more abrupt changes the difference between day and nighttime temperatures can reach
nearly 212 degrees Fahrenheit or 100 degrees Celsius the air changes as well it is thinner
during warm days and gets thicker during colder nights seasonal changes in air pressure can happen
winter months on Mars a portion of the atmosphere turns the frost and accumulates over the poles
lowering the atmospheric pressure over the remainder of the planets the air pressure Rises
during the Martian summer the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere Moxie's main snack
is affected by all of these variables Engineers turned on Moxie at various times of day and in
various Seasons to see how it would perform hex reported that they had discovered that the most
challenging time to collect carbon dioxides in the middle of the day and the heart of Winter when
it's both warm and the pressure is low the machine works on every run spinning an hour producing
oxygen and the easiest period is the middle of the night in the heart of summer when the pressure is
high and the temperatures low though the density of the air is changing and the temperature is
changing rapidly heck added the team has not yet deployed Moxie during Dawn or dusk Engineers worry
that the instrument may be harmed as it pulls in the gas due to the Fast Change in the amount of
carbon dioxide hex explains that they will first conduct some testing with a lab version of moxie
on Earth their optimistic they can make their tiny lunchbox function in these circumstances as well
one team has developed a way for producing oxygen from carbon dioxide with the use of plasma other
scientific teams are considering how to build oxygen factories for upcoming Mars Expeditions
furthermore some scientists are debating the best ways to utilize other resources on Mars such as
the ice deposits beneath the planet's surface the frozen water may be mined by astronauts
of the future who could then purify it for use on Earth in addition they may take the
hydrogen molecules from the water and use them to accelerate their Journey back home you could fully
refuel an Ascent vehicle with methane and oxygen just by using resources on Mars through processes
that are fairly well understood according to Julie kleinhens a NASA research engineer who
studies in-situ Resorts a utilization and is not involved with the Moxie project some basic
items such as spacesuits and toilets will have to be brought over from here however if you can
produce anything on Mars you can lessen the bulky cargo that makes it harder to watch from Earth the
creators of moxie Envision a time when a scaled up version able to do the tasks of hundreds of trees
as perpetually operating on Mars's surface to ensure that there would be ample oxygen reserves
when astronauts arrived the factory would be launched before a human trip the earliest that
astronauts May land on the red plane it would be somewhere in the early 2040s according to NASA
which means the future is still many years away Elon Musk wants to travel to Mars far sooner than
that with SpaceX but even the space millionaire will experience the same limitations that would
make a voyage to Mars challenging and that's going to end today's episode hey we hope you enjoyed our
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