---
title: "NASA Scientists Think They Can Extract Rocket Fuel From Martian Soil"
description: "## Rocket Plan"
date: "2018-10-31"
modified: "2018-10-31"
authors:
  - name: "Jon Christian"
    job_title: "Executive Editor"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-scientists-extract-rocket-fuel-martian-soil"
categories:
  - "NASA"
  - "Space"
tags:
  - "kurt leucht"
  - "mars"
  - "NASA"
  - "the digest"
---

# NASA Scientists Think They Can Extract Rocket Fuel From Martian Soil

![NASA is hard at work on a "factory" that'd let future Mars missions — or even colonists — extract rocket fuel from Martian soil.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/nasa-scientists-extract-rocket-fuel-martian-soil.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Marek Denko/NoEmotion\</em\>*

## Rocket Plan

A major problem with Mars missions: Bringing enough fuel for a return journey.

In a striking new [first-person account](<https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/robotic-exploration/how-nasa-will-use-robots-to-create-rocket-fuel-from-martian-soil>) in *IEEE Spectrum*, NASA team lead Kurt Leucht writes about how the space agency is hard at work on a potential solution he hopes will let future Mars missions — or even colonists — extract rocket fuel from Martian soil.

## Dust-to-Thrust

Leucht's team calls the system "in situ resource utilization," or ISRU, but he prefers to call it a "dust-to-thrust factory."

The idea is that the ISRU will extract water from regolith — that's a fancy name for Mars' distinctive red soil, which scientists believe [contains trace amounts of water](<https://www.space.com/22949-mars-water-discovery-curiosity-rover.html>) — and use electrolysis to strip it into hydrogen and oxygen. Then it'll combine the hydrogen with carbon from the Red Planet's atmosphere to make methane, which can work as a rocket fuel.

## Round Trip

NASA plans to send the ISRU system ahead of a human Mars mission, along with robots that'll gather soil from the planet's surface. A few years later humans will come along, stay for a while, and eventually use the fuel it produced to fly back home.

"This technology will one day allow humans to live and work on Mars," he wrote, "and return to Earth to tell the story"

**READ MORE:** [How NASA Will Use Robots to Create Rocket Fuel From Martian Soil](<https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/robotic-exploration/how-nasa-will-use-robots-to-create-rocket-fuel-from-martian-soil>) \[*IEEE* *Spectrum*\]

***More on fueling up Mars missions: NASA: [“We’re Going to Try and Make Oxygen From the Atmosphere on Mars”](<https://futurism.com/nasa-were-going-to-try-and-make-oxygen-from-the-atmosphere-on-mars>)***

## Author
I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/jonchristian.net>)