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Yes, because we are sending an ISRU demo on the Mars 2020 rover which will convert the CO2 atmosphere into oxygen and carbon monoxide (which could be used as a fuel).

You'd have to use a completely different type of ISRU for the Moon, and mining for it on the Moon (i.e. scraping a permanently shadowed crater near a lunar pole) is a lot harder than on Mars where you can just suck in some of the atmosphere. There's not nearly as much commonality as you might think.




I didn't know about the ISRU test on Mars 2020, that's very exciting!


I thought the typical Martian ISRU called for heating soil to extract water vapor and using the hydrogen in that to make fuel. Oxygen is still interesting, for sure, but that robotic mining sounds a lot more difficult.


The carbon monoxide can also be used as rocket fuel. Not commonly considered, but it'd simplify a lot of things.




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