How do spacecrafts propel through space where there is no oxygen for combustion?
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The oxygen is carried in the fuel. Part of its chemical makeup.
Even at launch, rockets do not use atmospheric oxygen. They have no air intake, nothing is taken into the rocket to aid combustion.
Certain craft use hypergolic fuels, which ignite spontaneously when two chemicals are mixed, and unless I’m mistaken, these are not oxygen-based….
There’s an analogy with explosives, which will detonate on their own, without the need to take in oxygen first. The reaction either uses the oxygen in the chemical makeup, or uses a chemical reaction not based on oxygen.
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