Asteroid 24 Themis as a Space Gas Station?

Image by FlyingSinger via Flickr

The discovery of water compounds on the asteroid 24Themis brought a possibility of having a space gas station for manned space flights. Water can easily be converted to hydrogen fuel through a simple electrolysis or can be purified to be used as drinking water for the astronauts.

Today's space mission carries a lot of supplies from the earth (i.e water) which makes the rocket payload much heavier. Having a water supply on or along the way to the destination will be a big reduction on the weight of the space craft and the power requirement of the rocket that will carry it.

The challenge though lies in the fact that the gravity on 24 Themis is far less than that of the Earth. It will be a real challenge on how extract water from the lonely asteroid.

Read the full story on the link below.
Yahoo News-24 Themis