Water from asteroids could be broken down in space to liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen for rocket fuel.
The Ariane's core stage, which is prepared in northern France, uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as its propellants.
This is fuelled by liquid hydrogen, which is powerful but difficult to handle because of the low temperatures involved.
Apart from burning more smoothly, and inflicting lower stresses on delicate satellites, liquid methane costs only 1% as much as liquid hydrogen.
When it relies on the computer, it delivers breathtaking effects, such as liquid hydrogen trees, which are as majestic as anything in sci-fi artwork.
Its engines are fueled partly by methane, which the agency says is easier to handle and store than other propellants such as liquid hydrogen or hydrazine.
This architecture also enables NASA to leverage existing capabilities and lower development costs by using liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for both the core and upper stages.
The ESA-supported project started in 2005, and would use a propellant based on liquid oxygen and hydrogen.
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In his 50-year career, Ovshinsky received more than 400 patents in the U.S. and more than 800 foreign patents covering a range of technologies, including nickel-metal hydride batteries, rewritable CDs, DVD optical discs, flat-screen liquid crystal displays, hydrogen fuel cells, thin-film solar cells and others.
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Methanol contains 12.6% hydrogen and is a liquid at ambient temperature, enabling it to be used as a means of temporarily "storing" hydrogen until it is needed.
The process, which converts a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide to liquid fuels, and was discovered by German scientists.
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According to a new computer model, liquid methane in contact with a partially hydrogen-terminated diamond surface at extremely high pressures and temperatures spontaneously forms longer hydrocarbons, and hence the material of crude oil could be formed deep in the earth.
But in 1913 one of its scientists, Friedrich Bergius, found a way to turn coal into a high-grade liquid fuel by heating it in the presence of hydrogen and a catalyst.
It first started working with Virent to produce hydrogen, but later shelved that effort to develop liquid fuels.
It is contained within the case of the rocket, into which is pumped a liquid oxidiser called high-test peroxide (HTP), a concentrated form of hydrogen peroxide which is relatively safe to handle.
Gasification of coal offers the potential to turn dirty burning hydrocarbons into cleaner burning liquid fuels, such as synthetic natural gas, jet fuel and gasoline, as well as hydrogen for fuel cell use, a developing field.
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