NASA believes it can make rocket fuel from Martian soil

Though scientists are planning to travel to Mars, enough rocket fuel to make a return trip still stands as a major hurdle. However, scientists now believe that they can make rocket fuel from Martian soil.

In a new study published in IEEE Spectrum, NASA team lead Kurt Leucht wrote about how the space agency is working towards finding a solution that will let future Mars missions extract rocket fuel from Martian soil.

Though the system is called ‘in situ resource utilization’ (ISRU), Leucht calls it a ‘dust-to-thrust factory’. The idea for this solution is that ISRU will extract water from regolith; Mars’ distinctive red soil that scientists believe contains trace amounts of water.

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Then with the help of electrolysis, they will break the water down to hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen will then be combined with carbon from Mars’ atmosphere for making methane, which will then work as a rocket fuel, explained Futurism.

NASA plans to send the ISRU system before a human Mars mission accompanied with robots that will collect soil from the Red Planet’s surface. After a few years, humans will travel to Mars, stay for a while and will ultimately use the fuel it produced to fly back to Earth.

“This technology will one day allow humans to live and work on Mars and return to Earth to tell the story,” wrote Leucht.