Researchers led by NASA’s former chief technologist are hoping to launch a satellite carrying water as the source of its fuel.

The team from Cornell University, guided by Mason Peck, want their device to become the first shoebox-sized ‘CubeSat’ to orbit the Moon, while demonstrating the potential of water as a source of spacecraft fuel.

It’s a safe, stable substance that’s relatively common even in space, but could also find greater use here on Earth as we search for alternatives to fossil fuels.

Robert Zubrin is best known for his advocacy of the manned exploration of Mars.

Zubrin also had a design for interplanetary propulsion called the Nuclear Salt Water Rocket.

A nuclear salt-water rocket (NSWR) is a theoretical type of nuclear thermal rocket. A conservative design for the rocket would be fueled by salts of 20 percent enriched uranium or plutonium. The solution would be contained in a bundle of pipes coated in boron carbide (for its properties of neutron absorption). Through a combination of the coating and space between the pipes, the contents would not reach critical mass until the solution is pumped into a reaction chamber, thus reaching a critical mass, and being expelled through a nozzle to generate thrust.