Water is rocket fuel.

BBC: What if you could mine the Moon?

Oxygen could be derived from ilmanite reserves there and water could be extracted to make rocket fuel or sustain life on a base.

CNN: Mining the moon for a nuclear future

The oxygen that remains is burned with fuel and water in a chamber modeled after a rocket engine.

FORBES

But Mr. Ergen doesn't discount the role of luck, which may be why he has several bottles of feng shui water in his office and says he has "feng shui-ed" with rituals for luck all his satellite launches since Dish first sent a satellite into the sky in 1996 on a Chinese rocket that was charmed by auspicious Chinese water and chants.

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But some are also thought to harbour water ice, which could be used as a raw material for the manufacture of rocket propellant or even breathable air.

BBC: New venture 'to mine asteroids'

Water from asteroids could be broken down in space to liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen for rocket fuel.

BBC: Plans for asteroid mining emerge

In this way, things like rocket engines, satellites, Mars-exploring rovers, space suits, and water purifiers on the International Space Station become part of everyday life on Earth.

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My favorite example of this environmental excess is the ground water cleanup efforts around Sacramento, California, where one aerospace company has managed to reduce the incidence of rocket-fuel ingredient perchlorate to four parts per billion.

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Further, study of the captured space rock could teach researchers how to efficiently extract water from asteroids a resource that could be an off-Earth source of radiation shielding and rocket fuel for journeying spacecraft.

MSN: NASA might lasso an asteroid and drag it to orbit near moon