zeb haradon wrote:
>
> > Somebody else wrote:
> >Woohoo! Mars, here I come!
> >
> >Water = Hydrogen and Oxygen. Fuel to burn, water to drink, oxygen to
> >breath. Most of our supplies are already there.
>
> Need Carbon and Nitrogen too, plus minor supplies of Sodium, Potassium,
> etc.. There's Carbon there, I am not aware of Nitrogen content.
The atmosphere there is 95% CO2, 2.7% N2, 1.6% Ar, tiny amounts of O2
and CO (photodissociated CO2), and about .01% water vapor. The soils
should have all the needed ingredients, although some may be too saline
and would need to be "washed" to remove the excess.
Liquid surface (or shallow subsurface) water would be convenient, but
not essential. Molecular sieves for extraction of water from the
atmosphere (an idea I pioneered back in 1984, albeit in a less than
optimal mode) would be sufficient, returning many times their own mass
in water.
-- Doug Jones Rocket Plumber, XCOR Aerospace http://www.xcor-aerospace.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:14:03 MDT