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Perseverance, the Mars rover, includes an experiment called MOXIE. This is a technology demonstration to show that Mars' atmospheric carbon dioxide can be broken into carbon monoxide and oxygen. Future missions would use a much scaled up version of MOXIE to generate oxygen for life support and particularly for rocket propulsion for the return trip. The referenced article talks about taking a 1 tonne oxygen generator and 7 tonnes of rocket fuel (RP1?) to Mars.

My question is why not just take the 1 tonne generator and accumulate and store both the carbon monoxide and the oxygen locally and burn them together to propel the rocket. I assume there is a big disadvantage compared with more conventional fuels, but does this really outweigh having to convey 7 tonnes of rocket fuel to Mars?

Roger Wood
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    Moxie is neat, but they could split water into H2 and O2, then react 4H2 + CO2 ==> CH4 + 2H2O (Sabatier process). Better for SpaceX Starship. – Robert DiGiovanni Apr 22 '21 at 15:49
  • @Robert DiGiovanni Yes, you'd have to find the water first, but then you would have methane and oxygen for propulsion. – Roger Wood Apr 23 '21 at 02:38

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