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The fuel problem is one of the main drawbacks of a human mission on Mars. If the future explorers of the planet Mars want to return to Earth, they will not only need enough fuel to travel to Mars. they will need enough to go home too.
And the fuel is heavy. If the plan is to take away the Earth during the whole trip, this will add a lot of weight to the spacecraft, which means that it will take even more fuel for the Earth to take off. . It's a bit of an enigma, one that can be better resolved if there was a way to make fuel on Mars itself.
Now, in a brilliant new plan outlined in an article by Kurt Leucht, head of NASA's team on IEEE Spectrum, the dream of refueling directly on Mars seems to be a real possibility. And the only raw material needed to make rocket fuel? Martian soil.
The NASA team calls the method "use of resources in situ", or ISRU, but you can also just call it a "bulky plant". It involves extracting water from the regolith, which is a specialized way of referring to the dirt that is distinct from the red color of Mars, and using a process called electrolysis to clear the soil of its water marks in order to separate it in its components hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen can then be combined with carbon, which is abundant in the atmosphere of Mars, to produce methane, which can be used as fuel for rocket.
Of course, all of this takes time and finally a factory on site to live up to the task. For this, NASA is developing a squadron of robots that can be installed on Mars years before its return to Earth, which will work tirelessly to manufacture rocket fuel.
The whole plan includes a small hitch. This depends in particular on the theories and projections on the water content of the Martian soil. If we start digging and there is no water, or much less than expected, this could be a problem. But scientists are increasingly confident that the soil of Mars contains a large amount of water, which also bodes well for satisfying the survival needs of astronauts who plan to stay for some time on the ground. red planet.
"This technology will one day allow humans to live and work on Mars," Leucht wrote, "and come back to Earth to tell the story".
About MNN:
NASA has just developed a great way to turn the Martian soil into rocket fuel
This plan could make human missions between Earth and Mars more convenient.
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