There is a shiatload of helium-4 on the moon. One ton of it would power the world for a year with no nuclear waste. I don't see the problem.

Yeah Id rather rape the solar system than the planet

Ghastly: Mining asteroids would make more sense. Even a small sized asteroid has trillions of dollars worth of ore and rare earths in it.

Oh great, here come all the lunar warming nutters.

lordaction: There is a shiatload of helium-4 on the moon. One ton of it would power the world for a year with no nuclear waste. I don't see the problem.

I believe that's actually helium three. Nonetheless, there is a shiat ton of it on the moon such that you could conceivably power the world for at least a century with the stuff.

groppet: Yeah Id rather rape the solar system than the planet

This. Let's wreck the biospheres of some lifeless rocks instead of the one we, y'know, live in.

St_Francis_P: I have it on good authority that there are diamonds just laying around up there.


But first, watch this dance!

Ghastly: Mining asteroids would make more sense. Even a small sized asteroid has trillions of dollars worth of ore and rare earths in it.

And even then it's not worth it. And I'd like to see the geological survey you're referring to.

bigmf: Oh great, here come all the lunar warming nutters.

Great, regular Space Nutters aren't enough?

lordaction: There is a shiatload of helium-4 on the moon. One ton of it would power the world for a year with no nuclear waste. I don't see the problem.

It's Helium 3, dumbass, and seeing since we have absolutely no such fusion technology available, your delusional state of mind notwithstanding, it's stupid to even mention it. If we *did* have such technology available, I *think* the oceans, I'm not sure, would supply us with enough deuterium to run a far simpler fusion process for longer than the Sun would last.

Why are you so farking stupid? In an era of instant information access, there's no excuse.

Tempest2097: lordaction: There is a shiatload of helium-4 on the moon. One ton of it would power the world for a year with no nuclear waste. I don't see the problem.

I believe that's actually helium three. Nonetheless, there is a shiat ton of it on the moon such that you could conceivably power the world for at least a century with the stuff.

And I could conceivably bang Salma Hayek, Scarlett Johansson, and subby's mom all in the same day.

A fusion reactor to produce electricity with the easiest(in regards to temperature requirements) D + T reaction is still many decades away, if ever. D + He3 is even farther away.

Quantum Apostrophe: Ghastly: Mining asteroids would make more sense. Even a small sized asteroid has trillions of dollars worth of ore and rare earths in it.

And even then it's not worth it. And I'd like to see the geological survey you're referring to.

bigmf: Oh great, here come all the lunar warming nutters.

Great, regular Space Nutters aren't enough?

lordaction: There is a shiatload of helium-4 on the moon. One ton of it would power the world for a year with no nuclear waste. I don't see the problem.

It's Helium 3, dumbass, and seeing since we have absolutely no such fusion technology available, your delusional state of mind notwithstanding, it's stupid to even mention it. If we *did* have such technology available, I *think* the oceans, I'm not sure, would supply us with enough deuterium to run a far simpler fusion process for longer than the Sun would last.

Why are you so farking stupid? In an era of instant information access, there's no excuse.


1/10 - Too obvious

Tempest2097: lordaction: There is a shiatload of helium-4 on the moon. One ton of it would power the world for a year with no nuclear waste. I don't see the problem.

I believe that's actually helium three. Nonetheless, there is a shiat ton of it on the moon such that you could conceivably power the world for at least a century with the stuff.

Yeah, typed that wrong. Thanks for correcting.

beer4breakfast: A fusion reactor to produce electricity with the easiest(in regards to temperature requirements) D + T reaction is still many decades away, if ever. D + He3 is even farther away.

Facts and reality are powerless against religion. How can you argue against the grandiose visions of the 1960s Space Age? The most fever-induced delirious nonsense was eagerly lapped up by thousands of impressionable geeks. And it still is. When reality sucks, escapism is the answer.

Hey, Space Nutters, what's going on with the 1997 Japanese Space Hotel? Or the PG&E space-based solar array? Or the inflatable space station morons? Hmm? Oh yeah, sweet fark all because it makes no sense, it can't work, and it never, ever will. Ever.

Maybe, *maybe*, if enough delirious nutcases with tons of money get together, a few more people can get a thrill-ride to suborbit for five minutes in a cramped tin can filled with middle-aged bald apes with gas.

So what?

I know I should work an RAH reference in, but I feel like being serious for just a moment.

Off earth mining should be something we're doing so we aren't consuming so many resources down here.

Can we use convict labor?

xtragrind: Quantum Apostrophe: Ghastly: Mining asteroids would make more sense. Even a small sized asteroid has trillions of dollars worth of ore and rare earths in it.

And even then it's not worth it. And I'd like to see the geological survey you're referring to.

bigmf: Oh great, here come all the lunar warming nutters.

Great, regular Space Nutters aren't enough?

lordaction: There is a shiatload of helium-4 on the moon. One ton of it would power the world for a year with no nuclear waste. I don't see the problem.

It's Helium 3, dumbass, and seeing since we have absolutely no such fusion technology available, your delusional state of mind notwithstanding, it's stupid to even mention it. If we *did* have such technology available, I *think* the oceans, I'm not sure, would supply us with enough deuterium to run a far simpler fusion process for longer than the Sun would last.

Why are you so farking stupid? In an era of instant information access, there's no excuse.


1/10 - Too obvious

He's serious, actually - that's why I favorited him:

Quantum Apostrophe (favorite: Idiot. Believes in life extension and that nothing useful ever came out of space exploration)

meat0918: I'm OK with this.

But isn't the old line that with current technology, you could have a pallet of refined platinum up there and it would still cost more to go up and bring it back to earth than you would get selling it?

So, let's research better tech, and fast.

Getting it back isn't difficult, getting the tools to do the work up is where a large amount of cost may be.

Maybe they could also try and get into microgravity manufacturing at the same time.

Quantum Apostrophe: Ghastly: Mining asteroids would make more sense. Even a small sized asteroid has trillions of dollars worth of ore and rare earths in it.

And even then it's not worth it. And I'd like to see the geological survey you're referring to.

bigmf: Oh great, here come all the lunar warming nutters.

Great, regular Space Nutters aren't enough?

lordaction: There is a shiatload of helium-4 on the moon. One ton of it would power the world for a year with no nuclear waste. I don't see the problem.

It's Helium 3, dumbass, and seeing since we have absolutely no such fusion technology available, your delusional state of mind notwithstanding, it's stupid to even mention it. If we *did* have such technology available, I *think* the oceans, I'm not sure, would supply us with enough deuterium to run a far simpler fusion process for longer than the Sun would last.

Why are you so farking stupid? In an era of instant information access, there's no excuse.

and here comes our resident primitive

Quantum Apostrophe: Ghastly: Mining asteroids would make more sense. Even a small sized asteroid has trillions of dollars worth of ore and rare earths in it.

And even then it's not worth it. And I'd like to see the geological survey you're referring to.

bigmf: Oh great, here come all the lunar warming nutters.

Great, regular Space Nutters aren't enough?

lordaction: There is a shiatload of helium-4 on the moon. One ton of it would power the world for a year with no nuclear waste. I don't see the problem.

It's Helium 3, dumbass, and seeing since we have absolutely no such fusion technology available, your delusional state of mind notwithstanding, it's stupid to even mention it. If we *did* have such technology available, I *think* the oceans, I'm not sure, would supply us with enough deuterium to run a far simpler fusion process for longer than the Sun would last.

Why are you so farking stupid? In an era of instant information access, there's no excuse.

Uh, not sure if you are serious or not. I will pretend you are. The fusion reactors necessary are close to being built. By the time we get to the moon to mine they will be done. You are right it is H3 as I have already corrected below, sorry my typo made you apoplectic. In regards to your narcissistic post, maybe you ought to read this link. I am sure you will find it enlightening. Link (Dunning-Kruger effect)

watson.t.hamster: Can we use convict labor?

[www.goldenageofscifi.com image 318x517]

and you want to give them a mass driver too i bet

meat0918: Can we call the new bases moon unit alpha and moon unit zappa?

Wouldn't you have to pay the Zappa estate royalties for that?

Been there:

Done that:

cefm: Been there:
[www.movies-illustrated.com image 640x221]
Done that:
[3.bp.blogspot.com image 400x155]

Don't clone around

Well, let's see... It has a farkton of aluminum, titanium and iron, it's got an obscene amount of energy in the form of solar power, it's got a tiny little gravity well that doesn't take much energy to overcome.

Yep. Sounds pretty good to me. Objections?

I mean other than from they guy who's wife left him for a NASA engineer once his weener stopped working. He's going to biatch whatever.

impaler: If he can actually make it economically feasible, I say good luck to him.

The article mentions H3 so they are on the right track. If the Moon were made of solid gold it wouldn't be cost effective to go get it.

H3 on the other hand will meet Earth energy requirements for the next ten thousand years if we can just get it together to go get it.

loonatic112358: watson.t.hamster: Can we use convict labor?

[www.goldenageofscifi.com image 318x517]

and you want to give them a mass driver too i bet

Well yeah, but it would be computer controlled so don't worry.

r1chard3: H3 on the other hand will meet Earth energy requirements for the next ten thousand years if we can just get it together to go get it.

Can anyone explain to a lay person why H3 is so exciting and what it has to do with fission?

Boxcutta: Can anyone explain to a lay person why H3 is so exciting and what it has to do with fission?

possible fuel source for theoretical fusion reactions

Fission is what current nuclear reactors do now

As much as I hate to agree with our resident "butthurt at getting old, so hate everyone" troll, Helium 3 is NOT a reason for going to the moon.

We have quite enough He3 here to set up a reactor. It's a waste product from nuclear weapons. We have figurative heaps of the stuff. We haven't figured out how to utilize it.

Figure that part out first, THEN go crazy about He3.

Ghastly: Mining asteroids would make more sense. Even a small sized asteroid has trillions of dollars worth of ore and rare earths in it.

Not going to go all Quantum Apostrophe on you, but even the closest asteroids are way more difficult to reach than the moon, which is hard enough as it is. It'd take far more resources to reach one, much less attempt to mine it or move it closer to do so from Earth orbit, which would probably trigger the first world-wide NIMBY movement... which we'll have anyway when discussing how to get the goodies down here.

Even the moon itself is wishful thinking at this point (and probably will be for a very long time) but at least it has the advantage of being in a stable orbit nearby (relatively speaking).

/Was promised space stations by the time he grew up.
//Internet's not a bad consolation prize.

ayrsayle: /Was promised space stations by the time he grew up.

ISS is not the space station you were promised?

The moon belongs to America, and anxiously awaits the arrival of our astro-men. Will you be among them?

/Slow down Tubby.

Boxcutta:

Can anyone explain to a lay person why H3 is so exciting and what it has to do with fission?

He3 fusion is a nice, clean energetic reaction that looks great on paper but we haven't actually come up with an "over unity" recipe yet.

That's not to say it isn't the way to go, but we just haven't managed to make a useful application of it. I'm certainly not the person to ask.

The reason people always bring up Luna as a mining opportunity (assuming we get He3 fusion working) is that the solar wind is constantly putting out He3 and the moon acts as a big catcher's mitt for those atoms. Here on Earth He3 tends to get stripped off of the outer reaches of the atmosphere.

Considering we've never gone to the moon before, I'm kind of excited about this.

/not serious, hold your fire

3-He is a stupid idea that space dreamers gravitate to (in all kinds of high places too; US, Russia, China). It was popular in the 70s when people thought fusion was just a couple years away and moon landings would be a weekly occurrence, but it's just not sensible. Sadly the dream hasn't died.

An optimistic estimate is that the top 5cm of lunar surface is 10-50ppb 3-He, so maybe about 20mg/m^3. It would take an estimated 40 tons of the stuff to power the US (~1/4 of global demand) for a year. To get this much you'd need to process 2 million tons of regolith or about 13 square kilometers if I'm doing the math right (3g/cm^3 *.05m deep) of the lunar surface, including digging it up, finding the power to heat it, using some to-be-invented system to prevent the volatile helium from simply escaping, bottling it, shipping it back home. And this doesn't even address inventing the fusion reactors. Even if Taylor et al's microwave tractor idea (pdf, pg 7)does work, the collection rate is going to be pitiful.

Lunar ISRU solar (reflectors on the moon or PV launched into orbit for more sun exposure time) might make sense. 3-He does not. Mineral riches of the kind useful to earthly industry are absent. The only inherently valuable minerals on the moon that we know of are in impact craters. Most of the surface is economically worthless basalt and anorthosite, with a sprinkling of titanium. The moon has had no history of volcanism or mineralogically active water to speak of, thus the kinds of valuable minerals that can be found on Earth are buried hundreds of kilometers deep or simply don't exist.

Hate to agree with a troll but QA is right about space elevators and helium 3 (and life extension)