This paper describes the development performed by The Dow Chemical Company and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of a porous-polymer bead column capable of separating the components of interest thought to be present in the atmosphere of Mars. This development is part of a project at JPL to design a combined gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) experiment for the Planetary program. The porous-polymer bead material has been shown to be ideal for the space environment because it does not deteriorate when subjected to vacuum, radiation, and temperatures up to 250°C. The porous-polymer bead proved to be an excellent GC column material separating the following possible Martian atmosphere components in 14 min on one column (temperature programmed from 25 to 150°C): hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen-argon-carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane, water, nitric oxide, nitrous oxide, nitrogen dioxide, ammonia, methyl fluoride, methyl chloride, hydrogen sulfide, and sulfur dioxide.