The moon is cheat-y easy<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;curator.jsc.nasa.gov&#x2F;lunar&#x2F;lnews&#x2F;lnmar97&#x2F;oxygen.htm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;curator.jsc.nasa.gov&#x2F;lunar&#x2F;lnews&#x2F;lnmar97&#x2F;oxygen.htm</a><p>The TLDR is most lunar soil plus hydrogen and solar red heat gives a couple percent by mass oxygen in a couple hours.<p>So solar concentrators &quot;boiling&quot; vats of lunar dirt in the 14 day day, then tanks and nuclear powered LED illuminated plants during the 14 day night.<p>People don&#x27;t use much oxygen by mass (although the volume is impressive) so a natural safety strategy is to melt chambers in the base so immense that you can survive a lunar night without any working O2 source.  You&#x27;ll want warehouse space to store &quot;stuff&quot; anyway.<p>On mars, a worst case scenario means you&#x27;re a couple years away from the earth&#x27;s surface (not just O2 or general environmental, but food and disease and sickness) whereas the moon is never more than a couple days from anywhere on earth.  That&#x27;s very convenient.  I wonder how many years &#x2F; decades moonies will &quot;need&quot; 100% lifeboat coverage like that.  Eventually it&#x27;ll make more sense to get self help from a neighboring colony than to abandon ship and fly back to earth.