> "MOXIE works its magic by sucking in air, filtering out dust, and compressing and heating the gases to 800 degrees Celsius. The heated air flows through a solid oxide electrolysis instrument that splits carbon dioxide—which makes up 96 percent of the Martian atmosphere—into oxygen and carbon monoxide. The machine then separates out the oxygen and expels the carbon monoxide, alongside other gases, as exhaust."
The real necessity is to make methane, assuming you want to launch rockets from the Martian surface. The presence of ice on Mars in some regions means this might be plausible: dig up ice/dirt, warm to generate water, split water, collect H2, mix with carbon monoxide to make syngas, pass over catalyst to generate CH4.
My thought here is surely it could be sufficient for Martian applications. In reality, rockets off Mars initially will be to return humans and Martian samples.
So such a rocket would be convenient if sourcing Hydrogen proves to be very difficult.
Long term we'd want to manufacture methane there, in the meantime people have drafted missions that just bring extra hydrogen to Mars and combine it with carbon on-site.
> "MOXIE works its magic by sucking in air, filtering out dust, and compressing and heating the gases to 800 degrees Celsius. The heated air flows through a solid oxide electrolysis instrument that splits carbon dioxide—which makes up 96 percent of the Martian atmosphere—into oxygen and carbon monoxide. The machine then separates out the oxygen and expels the carbon monoxide, alongside other gases, as exhaust."
The real necessity is to make methane, assuming you want to launch rockets from the Martian surface. The presence of ice on Mars in some regions means this might be plausible: dig up ice/dirt, warm to generate water, split water, collect H2, mix with carbon monoxide to make syngas, pass over catalyst to generate CH4.