Would you support returning to the moon if you understood that by mining He-3 we would be energy independent?

Question

In parallel we would need to develop the fusion process with Duterium & Helium 3 Isotope on a commercial basis. One school bus-sized load of He3 would supply the US's energy needs for 1 year and produce only water as a byproduct! China is planning to do this to mine the 1-3 meter layer of He3 covering the Moon's surface by eons of the solar wind.

Answer 1

I would support any scientific way to make us energy independent. I hope any country can free us from the slavery of OPEC oil.

Answer 2

I would if He-3 WERE the answer to our energy needs, but it isn't. He-3 is 10 times harder to use in a fusion reactor than Tritium, and after decades of work and billions of dollars spent in the effort, we still have not made a Tritium reactor that produces any power. The only thing about He-3 is that, IN THEORY, it could produce power with less radiation. But so could Boron-11, which is in plentiful supply on Earth. But all this talk is totally moot because we have no working fusion power generators.

Answer 3

I do support returning to the moon. However, we have found the moon to be incompatible with any fusion process domestically in America. Duterium & Helium 3 are not commonly found in our domestic cheese products. The moon is made of limburger cheese.

The Chinese people, in contrast, consume different cheeses. Preliminarily, they believe their moon-mining process will mean they can derive acceptable energy and gases from domestic cheeses, as a by-product of the fusion of He3 and Toot-terium. I'm *sure* they will have gas as a by-product of the Limburger cheese fusion process.

Answer 4

I've heard it discussed. The more immediate problem would be a permanent base. If robots were a practical solution we'd be using them here for all our mining. It's interesting that most people don't know that the moon's curst is around 50% oxygen. I thought that was one of the most interesting discoveries when they firat started bringing it back. The rest is aluminum, titanium, magnesium and silicone-- all usable stuff. What's rare is hydrogen (the most common element in the universe). It's hope that frozen water may be found beneath the surface at the poles, but the results aren't promising. For people interested in returning to the moon, I'd recomment this document

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/moon98/pdf/6042.pdf

Answer 5

That's a nice theory. I don't have the scientific background to speak to it's credibility but I do look at our government from time to time and my arguenment is this: We already have an abundant, clean, free and for all intents and purposes ETERNAL source of energy. It's called the SUN.

Now if we won't spend money developing efficient solar energy - where technology already exists - what makes you think we'll spend money building space ships to the moon to mine He-3? And what solution do you think is more cost effective?

Sadly, I've been to the National Renewable Energy Lab outside of Golden Colorado, and it's two offices and two guys. If we funded solar energy like we funded the ORIGIANL moon shot I think we'd have solved our energy dependence and our climate problems a long time ago...

Answer 6

I have a half-answer on this.If you are referring to potentially using fusion of deuterium and water,D2o, known as 'heavy water', I would also be interested in knowing how the extra hydrogen is burned off. Anyway, we're talkin' a lotta 'scoots' to get enough produced(helium is not cheap). In addition, I believe China may know the concept, but the reality is a ways off for them. I like the idea, however.

Answer 7

whats your source on this? if you put Helium into a chemical reaction process, there has to be helium coming out on the other side unless you actually break down the atom structure, you say that water is the only byproduct but there is no helium in water, where did the helium go?

Answer 8

You may be getting the cart before the horse here. The technology to mine, process and refine this element hasn't yet
been perfected. The amounts of the proper isotopes are far more scarce than you might imagine. COST, COST and more COST.

Answer 9

If we had ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had eggs.

This is a great argument for putting more research into nuclear fusion, which is still not at or near the break-even point. It is not a great argument for going back to the moon before that time.

Answer 10

yeah sure, sounds good. of course, how much for the actual trips to the moon and to set up shop there? would that still be less than what we would save on energy?

Answer 11

Huh...I didn't know the US owned the moon.

Commercial scale fusion...sure piece of cake, I mean all those cheap super colliders we have to smash one or two molecules together...should be no problem to scale up.