US ambition to bring oxygen production to Mars

US scientists are working on a machine that turns CO2 into oxygen. It is expected that the technology will be completed and put into use in 2020.

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We want to produce oxygen on Mars

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA are developing a tool called Moxie. This new tool will generate oxygen from CO2 and put it on the red planet on a new self-propelled car by NASA in 2020.

"This will be the first time we have really produced oxygen on Mars," said Dr Jeffery Hoffman, a former astronaut and machine builder.

The oxygen machine will be used on Mars in the future

Martian atmosphere is 96% CO2 while oxygen is less than 0.2%. The team hopes to convert CO2 to 99.6 percent pure oxygen. To do so, it is necessary to draw CO2 from the surrounding environment and isolate the oxygen molecules, then combine them to produce O2, the air that can breathe.

Capital Security said the Moxie oxygen generator project was selected from 58 scientific proposals in the world. If this technology is available, it will reduce the burden on human Mars, because 75% of the problem in the project put people on the planet Red is related to oxygen. This technology not only plays a role - it helps produce breathing gas in a future space travel, but also saves fuel on the return journey from Mars to Earth.

NASA is expected to send an empty missile with Moxie to Mars , before putting it on it, Business Insider said. The oxygen generator will take about a year and a half to pump enough liquid oxygen. After the astronauts landed on the surface of Mars, they would have a rocket fueled and ready to take them back to Earth.