re: You're Way Off Base Nick
Actually, I AM an industrial geologist.
I'm well aware that in the areas where oil and gas occur, there is a lot and the local concentrations are high. Similarly for minerals.
It's easier to extract it from the areas with highest concentrations, but this area is only a fraction of the whole globe - that was the point I was trying to make based on the concept that this is a local "wet spot". I wasn't using your 2% as a "concentration" number, but as an "occurence".
You are correct, of course, that it's barely wet by any reasonable standards and may take a lot of processing to extract, but it still might be cheaper one day to mine it and process it, than to ship water into high orbit.
That day is also far in the future, as I see it.