"Wet" Asteroids Could Supply Space Gas Stations

FleaPlus writes "Water ice was recently discovered on the large asteroid 24 Themis, and Space.com discusses proposals for producing fuel from asteroid ice. NASA and the President recently announced plans for robotic precursor missions to asteroids (and a human mission by 2025), as well as a funding boost for R&D to develop techniques like in-situ resource utilization. Since most of the mass of a beyond-Earth mission is fuel, refueling in orbit would be a huge mass- and cost-saver for space exploration (especially if fuel can be produced in space), but a large unknown is how to effectively extract water in an environment lacking gravity."

Comments

Not so hard

[T Murphy]

a large unknown is how to effectively extract water in an environment lacking gravity

Easy, bring the asteroid down to earth to extract the water. I don't see why they have to make it so complicated.

Re:Not so hard

[Anonymous Coward]

so instead of Armageddon in wich we try to destroy asteroids, we'll send up people/robots to make the asteroids land at the right spot?

and how big must these asteroids be to make it worthwhile? tektonic plate shattering big?

or will it be fuel negative? like the corn which requires almost as much diesel to harvest as it will produce?

or will you beam the asteroid to it's place with yet undiscovered tractor beams? risking urban catastrophes?

We'd simply put you under the landing site. The large "woosh" generated above your head would instantly slow the rock to 0 m/s.

Re:Mining Asteroids like Eve Online

[pellik]

Mining asteroids in EVE is one of the lowest paying professions one can engage in. Perhaps NASA would be better served to focus on killing the spaceships that they encounter around the asteroids for bounties.

Have we learnt nothing?

[Issarlk]

After the mexican gulf and it's oil, let's polute space with giant water spills! Who the hell had that good idea at Nasa?