Method for Asteroid Volatile Extraction in Space

Some meteorites representative of certain classes of asteroids are 25% or more water by weight. This is consistent with infrared spectra of some asteroids, indicating hydrated minerals are abundant in some varieties of carbonaceous chondrite asteroids. Since water is very valuable in space, it would be desirable to be able to process asteroids to recover this water and other volatiles. The Asteroid Redirect Mission concept has formulated a method for returning asteroids of 1,000-ton mass into the Earth-Moon system orbit using only ~10 tons of propellant. If ~25% of that returned asteroid mass were recovered as volatiles and solar power used to make those volatiles into propellant, then the overall system would generate approximately 25 times as much propellant as it uses. This could be used to make sustainable human missions to Mars or otherwise spread humanity into the solar system.