Would it be possible to mine/attain some sort of liquid rocket fuel on Mars?

[Kerbface]

I know the simplest but with some issues is simply hydrogen and oxygen, I would think that wouldn't be too hard to attain on Mars. I was thinking if they could develop some method of obtaining and refining the required chemicals for a rocket it would make having a Mars base capable of return much easier, assuming reusable spacecraft. It would probably be a lot easier to make an SSTO ascent/decent crew ship on Mars due to the gravity, so fuel would be all you'd need to go back and forth as often as you like and also to resupply an orbiting craft for returning to Earth orbit when needed.

[ZedNova]

I heard that they were going to use some sort of witchcraft to make methane on mars to use as fuel. Maybe someone smarter than me could explain it better.

[Kryten]

The sabatier reaction, combining hydrogen and carbon dioxide to get methane and water (which you then electrolyse and put back through the reactor). The hydrogen can either come from martian ice, or simply be sent (as it provides only a small proportion of the mass of the produced fuel).

[Rune]

Hahaha, no witchcraft, plain chemistry. First you have to get Hydrogen, either from Earth or from water:

2H2O + energy > 2H2 + O2

Then you run a sabatier reactor:

4H2 + CO2 > CH4 + 2H2O

Then you recirculate the water to the electrolisis unit. In the end, you have methane and oxygen, a good, only mildly cryogenic rocket fuel combination with isp's around 350-375.

You could of course use plain water rockets, or go more complicated and build chemical industry on Mars. But methane is a really simple effective ISRU rocket fuel.

Rune. Besides, it's just scooping up atmosphere, even though the compressor is far from trivial.

[K^2]

By far the SIMPLEST way to make liquid fuel on Mars would be to build pressurized greenhouse pools on the surface and grow algae. Just pump in CO2, pump out oxygen, and use organic material algae generate to make ethanol. No complicated chemical processing required. No energy other than solar required. The downside is that this would have to be built over significant area, and keeping it pressurized might be tricky. (Pressure needs high enough for water not to boil at room temperature.)

[Sof]

I was under the impression that there were places on Mars where methane was being produced from unknown sources.

I heard they were detecting it in the atmosphere when it should decompose rather quickly.

[Kryten]

It's being produced in quantities best measured in parts per billion, even close to the sources. Not really useful for a space program.