Edit: wow okay, I did not expect to wake up to THIS. Of course my most popular post would be a dumb stoner question.
Thankyou so much for the awards and the answers, I can sleep a little easier now
In: Chemistry
As others said, we can, and I believe that in space we sometimes do, but: why should we?
Water is extremely abundant and easy to transport (unlike hydrogen, which likes to just go slowly seep through solid metal while damaging it – “Hydrogen Embrittlement”). In fact, even the ISS gets its oxygen shipped in the form of water. 18 kg of water consist of 16 kg of oxygen and 2 kg of hydrogen, and unlike oxygen, water doesn’t need to be stored in pressure vessels, doesn’t make everything flammable, etc.
Fuel cells produce water from hydrogen and oxygen as a byproduct (their main purpose is providing electricity), but at least on earth, we rarely have a reason to capture and use that water.
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