Reading through in-situ methods to manufacture oxygen on Mars, I see the following assets:
- in future, 100x scale of MOXIE would produce up to two kilograms of oxygen per hour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Oxygen_ISRU_Experiment Okay that is, year-demand for one adult will be in place already in 400kg/2=200 hours, or annual production will suffice for a colony of about 40 people. If this oxygen will be just a propellant source before people come, Elon Musk is talking about a propellant plant as well - well those 17 tons of LOX per year are not SO much. So how could this LOX factory look like on Mars, and maybe it makes sense after MOXIE succeeds indeed to design something self-replicating?