> to make, say, iron
? but iron is an element?
? but iron is an element?
[1] https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Inorganic_Chemistry/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_furnace
since it partially burns coke to make CO which reduces FeO to Fe producing CO2. An alternate approach is to reduce FeO with hydrogen producing H2O. Either way this is likely to be a circular process in a space economy since volatiles like H2O and CO2 are precious.
With that in mind, any metal ores had plenty of time to oxidize just like on earth. But metal from asteroids that impacted over the last two billion years or so should be unoxidized.