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A comment on NASA: We're sending humans to Mars. Parent comment

Re:NASA: We're sending humans to Mars by valarauca1 on Tuesday December 02, 2014 @05:50PM (#8690590)
The advantage of methane is that it can be produced natively out of the martian atmosphere. Heat + Metal Catalyst + C02 + H2 = Methane + O2

Also hydrogen + O2 = water. So basically you ship the astronauts with nothing but hydrogen and live off the land. Or this is what the Mars Society was calling for.

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Re:NASA: We're sending humans to Mars by seanflyon on Wednesday December 03, 2014 @05:02PM (#8696589)
89% (by mass) of hydrogen/oxygen fuel can also be produced from Martian atmosphere, since Oxygen has an atomic mass 16 times that of hydrogen. I think Methane has advantages other than a slightly larger portion producible from Martian air.
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Re:NASA: We're sending humans to Mars by danielweber on Tuesday December 02, 2014 @07:01PM (#8690970)
Yes, any launch from Mars is very likely to be methane.

I was just trying to figure out how SpaceX could fund its development of methane rockets before that, through domestic use of methane rockets.

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