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I came to a different conclusion (see sibling comment to yours) in part because I don’t believe the 98% O2 solution was toxic (and it would be if the other 2% w

I came to a different conclusion (see sibling comment to yours) in part because I don’t believe the 98% O2 solution was toxic (and it would be if the other 2% were CO2, no?). I don’t have hard evidence for that belief, but I just expect that if it were toxic it would have been mentioned and NASA wouldn’t have been celebrating. (My guess was non-CO2 atmospheric gases.)

marcosdumay 3y ago
AFAIK, a 2% CO2 concentration is just toxic enough to cause long term health issues, and people can deal with it for months without a lot of problems. (And that's at sea level pressure, at a 0.3 atm O2-only atmosphere, I have no idea.) NASA may quite well consider it livable. I have no idea what kinds of missions they have in mind. (But there are some low confidence studies claiming it makes people stupid.) Anyway, the wikipedia page's language implies the CO2 is purified before going into the Moxie. And from what I can tell, you can't reach even 94% purity without that step, so I assume it's there.