The Caspian Sea. Once it was the 4th largest body of fresh water in the world.

Now it has been badly shrunken and is very polluted and becoming too salty to support life and it isn't the only lake.

The Great Salt Lake and the Dead Sea are vanishing. Of course, that water could not be used for anything but, the winds blow and blows the salt across cities and agricultural lands.

The water does not always make it way back.

That is really bad for agricultural land, killing it off and increasing the problems.

Ocean life is struggling now, reefs are dying, fish stocks depleted. Now you want to increase the amount of salt.

Anyway, I can see if being able to get ice from other planets and finding a way to process it could be helpful in future space stations and exploration.

Even if my opinion is the dumbest thing you have ever read, I thank you for the informed conversation.

Can't put in too much salt, can't put in too much plastic, can't put in too many chemicals...

Is the ocean just one big sewer?

Anyway, thanks for answering the question with science.

I hear a lot about desalination. Nobody answers the question about salt really.

What if you don't have the water to ship around?

And when all of that runs out, then what?

We are already seeing its effects on places like El Salvador. People leaving there and coming here because they can't raise crops.

I did hear an interesting story on today's NPR's Here and Now and indoor farming.

Well, the catapult is for equipment, mainly satellites. If it works, no telling what they have develop out of it later.

I totally disagree about putting salt back in.

Enough countries start desalination then that much more salt well go into the ocean.
Are you taking into account population growth? Loss of water resources? That some areas are becoming deserts? Loss of aquifers?

I live along a river in Montana that is known for white water and trout fishing. Many houses have been built by the river the last ten years and drop in water levels on the river had been noted.

The major conclusion is houses, like mine have their own well and has dried out the area, so water is flowing from the river to our wells.

As one man said, "How many straws can you put in the glass before the glass is dry?

Developing technology to go get water may not be cheap, easy, or even all that practical but, we may not have a choice.

I don't know. Company in New Mexico and been working on a high tech catapult that if successful will throw things into space.

I forget, are their ice fields on Mars? Robot craft would cut the ice and perhaps assemble it and float back towards earth, guided by rockets somehow.

What you do with the salt is important. Just going to toss it outside on some field?

Maybe. horrible droughts, loss of farmland, ocean life disappearing, even bugs are disappearing, loss of water sheds and glaciers.

The species may survive but, not near as many.

Well Climate Change and already existing uses of aquifers, how long before fresh water gets real hard to find.

Ice fields and glaciers are melting faster every day, record temperatures, lack of rain and snowfall.

Use the ocean water and do what with the salt? Put it back in the ocean?

Trouble is, what to do with the salt?

I understand Saudi Arbia gets a lot of their water from the ocean, as does Israel.

I don't know what Israel does with their salt but the Saudis put a lot of it back into the ocean and one study I read said it is affecting the Gulf of Oman.

What if most coastal oceans start using ocean water?

Probably truth to what you are saying. We do know some bacteria has come from space.

Perhaps some sort of space factory that would heat the water way past steam and pressure it, ozone, try to kill what ever is there.

We may be going extinct soon anyway.

Why would it need to approach the Sun?

Could ice be vibrated off the street?
My area is in the middle of Winter. An early snow went through typical periods of warming and cooling. Melting and refreezing.

Many of the streets now have hard packed ice with large grooves where tires run. Trying to turn a car can cause quite a bit of bouncing around. Intersections are often ice rinks. Of course, walking across the street is a bit dangerous.

Could a machine of some type cause the ice to vibrate hard enough to break its bond to the street? Perhaps shatter it into pieces for easy removal?

I recall years ago a coal mine in the Eastern USA accidentally dug into an underground lake.

Didn't work out well for the miners. Sadly I can't remember where it took place.