THE MOON IS BARREN, but it's not dry. In 2018, NASA announced scientists had found evidence of surface ice in the shadows of craters in the polar regions. Those dark, frozen places beckon future explorers. Ice can be melted into water; water can produce hydrogen and oxygen; hydrogen and oxygen can be made into fuel for spacecraft venturing to the moon, Mars, and beyond. "I'm fond of saying that water is the oil of space, just like oil and petroleum products on Earth," says George Sowers, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, who has 30 years of experience in the field of space transportation. "You have diesel, you have various grades of gasoline, you can use it for creating plastics and all this other kind of stuff. In space, water can be used for all different kinds of propulsion demands, from low thrust to high thrust. It makes great radiation shielding. It's essential for life. You name it. I think the economy in space is going to run off of water."
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