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....isn't a logical (soon) step the rapid development of a demonstrator robotic Mars sample return mission to see if it can be done by making fuel on the surface?

Out of WHAT?

ALL 'fuel' is an ORGANIC compound except liquid HYDROGEN (as far as I know).

All fuel needs some kind of 'oxidizer' to burn: IE liquid OXYGEN.

Even if we found LAKES of this stuff on the surface (we won't) it takes POWER, of some type, to process ANYTHING to get it to a useable form.

Now the only type of power available on MARS is SOLAR (unless we haul a nuclear reactor up there)

This 'idea' does not appear to have been thought out to far.................

You've not heard Admiral Rickover give a talk of the planned large-scale solar power satellite systems, already being developed in China for use in their space program.

The biggest obstacle to lunar and martian activities will not be the legal issues behind the Outer Space and Moon Treaties (many corporations will go when it makes sense to make $$), but the materials processing and power generation technologies that have yet to be demonstrated.

This is why I'm excited. =) I think we just found a justification for greatly expanded science education, and a place to put the tools/skills/talents to good use.

Science education is like tithing in church. It pays dividends.

Most of us also recognize fission and fusion as utilizing "fuel" - fuel which is clearly available on Mars in the form of Uranium and Hydrogen and probably Helium.

It is extremely shortsighted for anybody not to recognize the potential of exploiting indigenous materials for building tools to exploit Mars and processing the fruit of the exploration. Included in those materials available are also a huge amount of available real estate for increasingly capable solar furnaces and power generators, and a lack of enviro whackos to claim that all human life on Earth will be doomed by nuclear (and eventual fusion) reactors.

Micro- and nano-technology will also be able to exploit Mars with currently undreamed-of effect. There is no possible way to begin to imagine our potential and discoveries and inventions in that process.

Will this take some time? --- Certainly ... Possibly a long time. Now is the time to start, not to delay.

Out of WHAT?
ALL 'fuel' is an ORGANIC compound except liquid HYDROGEN (as far as I know). All fuel needs some kind of 'oxidizer' to burn: IE liquid OXYGEN.
Even if we found LAKES of this stuff on the surface (we won't) it takes POWER, of some type, to process ANYTHING to get it to a useable form.
Now the only type of power available on MARS is SOLAR (unless we haul a nuclear reactor up there)

This 'idea' does not appear to have been thought out to far.................

Actually, this idea has been thought out to an incredible extent. You might want to read Report on the Construction and Operation of a Mars In-Situ Propellant Production Unit by Robert Zubrin, Steve Price, Larry Mason, and Larry Clark of Martin Marietta Astronautics before you rant:

>The following is a report on a project to build and operate a chemical synthesis unit representing the core of a machine capable of manufacturing rocket propellant primarily out of indigenous materials freely available on the surface of the planet Mars. The project, which was carried out at Martin Marietta astronautics in Denver, Colorado between October 1993 and January 1994, was funded by the New Initiatives Office of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. David Kaplan was the JSC program manager, and Steve Price was the project manager at Martin Marietta..."

Perhaps you forgot the the Martian atmosphere is mostly CO2, and organic = carbon.

Hydrogen weighs a whole lot less than methane, and this process makes a whole lot of fuel & oxidizer using off the shelf technology using hydrogen and electricity. And, yes, a nuclear reactor is part of their plan to power a human base and produce propellent for return flights.