3 ms·

Because we don’t have to ship the equipment to another celestial body where it cannot be maintained or debugged? If you’re suggesting that it has no use on ear

• JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > you’re suggesting that it has no use on earth Mars’ atmosphere is 95% carbon dioxide with most of the remainder being inert gases [1]. That not only means this reaction yields a meaningful amount of oxygen per operating cycle [2], it also means you aren’t superheating corrosive gases. This is technology that has no use on Earth. It’s tremendously useful on Mars. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars [2] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abp8636 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abp8636
  • dijit 4y ago
    From my perspective anything we do to make mars habitable can make earth habitable. If you’re telling me that a corrosive byproduct cannot be captured or reused: then that is likely also true of mars.
    • JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > anything we do to make mars habitable can make earth habitable This is fundamentally false for the device this article highlights. Different chemistries. > you’re telling me that a corrosive byproduct cannot be captured or reused: then that is likely also true of mars It’s not. There isn’t oxygen. Superheating 95% CO2 with inert gases and running it over a catalyst in a device that can do about sixty operating cycles makes sense. Superheating a 20% oxygen gas mix [1] is immediately problematic for most metals; doing it to convert the 0.04% CO2 to oxygen makes no sense. (While pumping a bunch of CO into the atmosphere [2].) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth [2] https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/air-quality/carbon-monoxide https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/air-quality/carbon-mono...
      • deleted 4y ago
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