August 10, 2014
By Steve Rising
NASA announced last month (click here) that it plans to make oxygen from carbon dioxide as part of a larger $2 billion project.
Of course, NASA isn’t making oxygen. It just wants to drive chemical reactions that combine the single, separate oxygen atoms in molecules of carbon dioxide into molecules of free oxygen.
Every green plant and alga on Earth has done the same thing with water molecules since the dawn of life. Indeed, they have done this long enough — more than 3 billion years — that our atmosphere has accumulated enough free oxygen to support life as we know it today.
If green plants and algae have done this for so long, then why is NASA spending so much money to generate more free oxygen? The answer, of course, is location, location, location.
NASA needs free oxygen on Mars....
By Steve Rising
NASA announced last month (click here) that it plans to make oxygen from carbon dioxide as part of a larger $2 billion project.
Of course, NASA isn’t making oxygen. It just wants to drive chemical reactions that combine the single, separate oxygen atoms in molecules of carbon dioxide into molecules of free oxygen.
Every green plant and alga on Earth has done the same thing with water molecules since the dawn of life. Indeed, they have done this long enough — more than 3 billion years — that our atmosphere has accumulated enough free oxygen to support life as we know it today.
If green plants and algae have done this for so long, then why is NASA spending so much money to generate more free oxygen? The answer, of course, is location, location, location.
NASA needs free oxygen on Mars....
