Our moon has aluminium oxides and is energy-rich for half the month. It also doesn't have a lot of gravity. Therefore an outbound craft, rather than burn expensive hydrogen, might have a crew spend time separating aluminium from oxygen, then burn that dust. So: a similar suggestion for Mars.
Mars can get oxygen too... but what it can get for cheaper, is carbon dioxide. Now: CO2 is pretty inert, as gas goes. Goroshin, Lee, and Higgins back in 1999 suggested that CO2 if liquid could burn magnesium.
Back in 1999 these three weren't confident in finding water on Mars - meaning, equatorial latitudes, best for getting back to Earth (which, further, could refuel and tether at Phobos / Deimos). We might be better-off now. Honestly I remember some confidence of finding Martian-tropic ice even in 1999.
I'll bring in that whatever you can react with carbon-dioxide, you can react so much better with carbon-monoxide. Mars' economy, if we trust Robert Zubrin, will use much CO. Instead of Mg + CO2 why not Mg + CO for more exhaust-velocity? I can think of soot as a clog-opportunity, but if so then the authors should have noted that - I think.
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