Moon fusion fuel

[Shockjock]

I just read the article on Icrontic's home page, about the Moon being a possible source for future energy production (fusion of Helium3). My question is why go all the way to the moon for Helium 3 when we have cubic miles of Hydrogen right here that we could use for fusion reactors, IF they ever develop fusion reactors in the first place?

[rapture]

Because America owns the moon so has access to all of that free helium without having to go to war with anybody?

ps, I dont actually believe that :)

[Hawk]

When compared to the Earth, the moon has a tremendous amount of helium 3.
They estimate 200 million tons of lunar soil would yield one ton of helium, noting 200 million tons of earths soil would only yield 22 pounds of helium.
It's deposited on the lunar surface by solar winds.
Hehe, rapture, Russia, Europe and others are vying for their own piece of the moon too. They actually want to get together with Nasa and do it as a joint venture.

[rapture]

I can imagine, everyone wants a slice of the pie. It would be nice if they could keep it how it is though instead of turning it into one big mine. Thankfully it wont happen in my lifetime so at least I can live the illusion that some things are still sacred.

And about America owning the moon, it was on a Simpsons episode once and the thread reminded me of it so yeah... Thats where that came from :)

[yagga]

yep, if you leave the USA and go to lesser developed countries it's amazing how natural they can be and how the USA was at one time before cities, roads, and farms took virtually all of it up.

yes, yes I know there are areas in the USA undeveloped, but mountains and deserts don't count, and there are still roads that go every where just about.

[Mortis]

I think it's kinda a cool idea, but still a little far fetched and far enough into the future that I'm not too worried about it.


I was watching some discovery channel show one time and it speculated 1000 years into the future (something to do w/ living on mars or something). It was like it would take 100 years to do this, 500 to do this and blah blah blah... and then there would be an livable atmosphere on mars and we could walk around freely. I thought it was just plain funny. On the other hand, I guess you have to have stuff planned out to be able to do it.
Oh well

[Shockjock]

OK, but nobody answered the initial question. Why go to the moon to mine helium to fuse, when we have a practically infinite supply of Hydrogen here on earth that we could use instead?