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The hard part would be finding a way how to synthetize all the chemicals we need without oil. I imagine that would require a vast amount of energy.

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The atmosphere there provides all the carbon, oxygen and nitrogen you need, hydrogen (from water) is the thing in short supply at present.

If you can synthesize methane there, you should be able to make longer chains and polymers with the right application of chemistry. One thing for sure, you'd never just burn fuel/oxygen together instead of using fuel cells, batteries and solar.

Nuclear would be a good power source if cooling isn't impractical.

There is very, very little accessible water, thus very little hydrogen. Any expedition planning in situ fuel synthesis had better bring its own hydrogen.

There's a ton of carbon in the Martian atmosphere. It sounds like a great place for an algae farm (which is where terrestrial oil came from.)

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