Making Oxygen on Mars - NASA’s Breakthrough EXPLAINED 

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.

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.

So we need a machine that turns carbon dioxide into oxygen. So a plant. We need to make an artificial plant.

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.

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 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.

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

This is how we'll breathe on Mars: Hold your breath quite long.

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.

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.

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.

That's a great video. Super informative but more importantly it is fun to watch.

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.

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.

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!

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

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

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 we need to thicken Mar's atmosphere somehow first.

Awesome video! 🎉😊

After 3 billion years of life I suspect almost all water on Earth has been pee of some sort at some point.

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.

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.

Great video, but I don't understand what the benefit of producing CO and O is. What do we do with them after that? Do the Oxygen atoms easily combine to be breathable Oxygen? What do we do with the Carbon Monoxide?

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!

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.

Starts with extremely not to scale cartoon of the martian atmosphere.

Fascinating stuff! Thank you!!

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?

So why did mars lose its atmosphere. Have they forgotten

The lunar radio telescope is just a proposal. You made it sound like they’ve decided to build it.

Awesome explanation, thanks!

Mars is excellent for human's to make a second home. It's not as bad as some may think.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What happens to the Carbon Monoxide that's produced alongside Oxygen?

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?

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.

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?

very interesting indeed, Answers my overiding concerns re the Mars colonisation question

It still amazes me that someone actually figured this out

Fully interesting! Thank You!

There are so many ways that creating oxygen could benefit us, i just can’t stop coming up with ideas lol

can the heat produced from the moxie also be used as power/ converted to power

How would you keep the carbon monoxide from leaking out with the desired oxygen? Can you really separate them with something resembling 100% effectiveness?

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.

Good video and explanation. But what about photosynthesis? Oxygen and food!

very good video i find it interesting that they can produce oxygen from the air on mars but it is a finite resource. what would need to happen is a way to grow plants and produce more carbon and then raise the temperature of mars to terraform the planet as those living on mars would eventually run out of air similar to Spaceballs.if you want cans of perriair delivered from earth that is one thing. your argument however was sustainability and it would require a small crew going in and going through and starting the terraforming process which would make it possible for other people to move to mars.

Fascinating. What options are there on the moon? I imagine either decomposing minerals or electrolysis of crater ice.

What is the composition of the air that we breathe here on earth? That needs to be clarified for the viewer in order to explain what needs to be made. NO2 @ 78% + ???

Where did you get that awesome shirt?!

I just noticed the ISS water spigot is labeled "rehydration station". Lol i reckon some engineer was having fun with that one.

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.

there might be very little oxygen in the air but isn't the planet covered with oxygen? it was my understanding that the red on the red planet was iron oxide. i know the process is a giant pain but you end up with iron and oxygen which i would expect both could be used in habitats. probably something more for later stages of habitation though.

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.

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.

I don't think Mars has enough gravity to hold on to an atmosphere

So little? I'm impressed by that little guy!

Thank you, again!

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?

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

You could theoretically break-up the CO2 molecules using extremely intense, high-frequency sound waves by way of acoustic resonance

Silly question can the spare gases used at the Iss/Elon Musk adventure to Mars ? could they not be recycled stored as fuel/energy and used for something like power ? recyclable energy :) from this particular machine and same concept for similar ones ?

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.

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.

If you flip the thumbnail left to right, you could rename it "removing oxygen from earth" and the dates will still work

"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?

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.

Thing is, we also breath in Nitrogen. Where we get nitric oxide in our bodies

0:22

Why I remember technology which was used for similar goals in Doom 3??? It actually looked pretty plausible.

At what point would you start using trees and plants in general to potentially create the oxygen if ever? I'm guessing it has something to do with the overall size of the colony?

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.

It is mesmerizing to think that mars is not habitable only because it is slightly less massive compared to earth. Other than that it could easily not only a second home but could be already the first home of other life forms

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…?

Oxygen is nice and all… but what to do about the deadly solar radiation without a magnetic field…

Next time we send a robot to mars. We need to bring seeds. Trees, plants, crops

So if instead of making that hydrogen and co2 into methane, we should make it into sugar for tomorrow's coffee

(earth surface is mostly water so should a mars habitat ) give everyone 9m dimameter luxury apartments, build river-like lakes for indoor walks, seafood and o2 algae - ice as building material gives vast structures in no time (melt large amounts of ice with reflectors, water absorbs dust and radiation as heat, boiloff be greenhouse insulation and atmospheric pressure - once it rains fish can survive mars nature )

maybe they could send a bunch of curiosity rovers to Mars, that individually contains the different components neccesary to create the atmosphere, then they could gradually release the components, and somehow keep an eye on how it works. Afterwards plants are neccesary for photosynthesis to happen.

I am pretty solid on the notion that Mars will be something for our next humanoid iteration: Homo artificialis.

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).

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?

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?

Has anyone read Red Rising? Awesome series based on Mars...and other places in the distant future.

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.

Isn't methane an energy source?

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.

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.

gotta start digging into mars lookin for fuel sources

Making oxygen: easy. Making an atmosphere on mars, with no magnetic field: like pushing a bowling ball up hill with a piece of cooked spaghetti.

Question, why don't they use Archaia bacteria to convert Co2?

Is anyone testing the low temperature plasma technique on Earth, but using Mars equivalent conditions? Years ago I saw a NASA paper criticising systems like MOXIE because of their inherent fragility (ceramics plus high temperature). I'm not sure this has ever been resolved. Note that any system also has the practical problem of dealing with real Mars air, which includes dust and building a must-never-fail self cleaning filter is not a trivial problem.

''what if we forget going to mars for now and focus on fixxing our current planet''

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?

so how can you KEEP it there when mars core and magnetic field are almost dead??

11:38 like a microwave, but for CO2 vibrational modes, instead of (liquid) H2O vibrational modes.

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