The last time I posted, in “Taking Flight on Mars,” it was a few days before Ingenuity’s first flight and we were all anxiously awaiting that achievement. Well, it happened, and now we’ve had two more flights — and more to come! Plus, there’s a firehose of information, including great images, all being made available for public appreciation as fast as the science teams can post them.

Furthermore, the MOXIE instrument on Perseverance has sucked in some carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere and breathed out oxygen! In the coming days and weeks, the rover will continue its science experiments with studies of the chemical composition of the rocks in the region around its landing site.

Making Oxygen on Mars

We all get the idea about the flight of the Ingenuity chopper — it’s a big step in extending surface exploration on Mars. But, what’s the deal with the MOXIE achievement? Let’s look at it this way: if you were a Mars explorer making your way across the Red Planet in a spacesuit, you’d need oxygen to breathe. And, there’s not a lot on Mars, nowhere near enough to sustain a person’s breathing needs. That’s where MOXIE comes in handy. It’s a small experimental instrument onboard the Perseverance rover that is designed to convert CO2 into oxygen. During future explorations, it will be much easier to convert that stuff in situ than it will be to haul huge oxygen canisters on board a spaceship from Earth.

Not only will CO2-to-O2 converters help give explorers the air they need to breathe, but large-scale conversion efforts will be needed to create reserves of fuel for future rockets that can be used at Mars to transport people to space (or to other parts of the planet).

Short-term Accomplishments on Mars for Long-term Success

There’s been a lot of talk in the past few years about sending people to Mars — which is not a new idea. The exploration of Mars has, if not always stated explicitly, been about learning more so we could go there. But, lately, the interest levels seem to have risen quite a lot. For example, the Chinese have made it clear they intend to send people to Mars. Elon Musk has ambitious ideas about sending a whole city’s worth of people to the Red Planet, and as soon as he can do it. NASA and ESA have been pursuing long-term robotic exploration goals in support of eventual human missions.

Most of the commentary centers on whether we need to do a “plant the flag and bring home rocks” kind of mission, as NASA did with the Apollo trips, or send long-term exploration teams to do science. In my mind, there’s more merit in the second approach, for a number of reasons. First, a trip to Mars is not a three-day “one and done” kind of deal. The mission hardware has to support a long trip supporting the crew. When they get to Mars, they actually have to live there for months at a time. You don’t just go there, do a few things for a few hours, and then head home. Orbital constraints will teach you otherwise.

Supporting Human Missions to Mars

Now, all the missions that have gone to Mars so far have functioned as science projects as well as scouts. They give us info about conditions on the trail ahead. That gives anybody who sends people to Mars a good start on preparations for living and working on Mars. Like lunar explorers, Mars crews will need to bring their own homes and supplies to tide them over. Their first task will be to set up units like MOXIE so they can start making their own oxygen. And, they’ll need to “mine” water, since that’s also important. They’ll be doing all this, along with achieving some science goals along the way. Essentially, you need to guarantee your survival before you can focus on other projects.

Those first missions probably won’t look like the Martian cities Elon dreams of; those will take a while to achieve. But, they’ll be a start on the eventual (and some would say, inevitable) colonization of Mars. The missions we see today are still precursors, but the future Martians will be more grateful for them than you can possibly imagine.