Maybe these will help: The Race for Helium 3 Continues *07-Mar-2007*
** Helium 3 is lying on the surface The space race <http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=5130> continues: after China <http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=5125> announced it is going to the moon in order to scoop up the valuable Helium 3 fuel for its fusion reactors, Europe and Russia said they were going too, then NASA said it was planning a mission—ostensibly to do "research," but doubtless so that no one else can lay claim to this incredibly valuable fuel. Now the German space agency is preparing for a mission to the moon. Walter Doellinger, the head of the German Space Program, says it will be ready to send an unmanned space shuttle into orbit around the moon by 2013. The German's have their own cover story for making this incredibly expensive journey: Doellinger says, "We want to show that Germany has the know-how." http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=6032 *Russia sees moon plot in NASA plans* By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow 02/05/2007 Mankind's second race for the moon took on a distinctly Cold War feel yesterday when the Russian space agency accused its old rival Nasa of rejecting a proposal for joint lunar exploration. The claim comes amid suspicion in Moscow that the United States is seeking to deny Russia access to an isotope in abundance under the moon's surface that many believe could replace fossil fuels and even end the threat of global warming. A new era of international co-operation in space supposedly dawned after the United States, Russia and other powers declared their intention to send humans to the moon for the first time since 1972. But while Nasa has lobbied for support from Britain and the European Space Agency, Russia claims its offers have been rebuffed. Yesterday Anatoly Perminov, the head of Russia's Federal Space Agency Roscosmos, said: "We are ready to co-operate but for some reason the United States has announced that it will carry out the programme itself. Strange as it is, the United States is short of experts to implement the programme." Nasa announced in December that it was planning to build an international base camp on one of the Moon's poles, permanently staffing it by 2024. Russia's space rocket manufacturer Energia revealed an even more ambitious programme last August, saying it would build a permanent Moon base by 2015. While the Americans have either been coy or dismissive on the subject, Russia openly says the main purpose of its lunar programme is the industrial extraction of helium-3. Dismissed by critics as a 21st-century equivalent of the medieval alchemist's fruitless quest to turn lead into gold, some scientists say helium-3 could be the answer to the world's energy woes. A non-radioactive isotope of helium, helium-3 is a proven and potent fuel for nuclear fusion - so potent that just six metric tons would supply Britain with enough energy for a year. As helium-3 is non-polluting and is so effective in such tiny quantities, many countries are taking it very seriously. Germany, India and China, which will launch a lunar probe to research extraction techniques in September, are all studying ways to mine the isotope. "Whoever conquers the moon first will be the first to benefit," said Ouyang Ziyuan, the chief scientist of China's lunar programme. Energia says it will start "industrial scale delivery" of helium-3, transported by cargo space ships via the International Space Station, no later than 2020. Gazprom, the state-owned energy giant directly controlled by the Kremlin, is said to be strongly supportive of the project. The United States has appeared much more cautious, not least because scientists are yet to discover the secrets of large scale nuclear fusion. Commercial fusion reactors look unlikely to come on line before the second half of this century. But many officials in Moscow's space programme believe Washington's lunar agenda is driven by a desire to monopolise helium-3 mining. They allege that President Bush has moved helium-3 experts into key positions on Nasa's advisory council. The plot, says Erik Galimov, an academic with the Russian Academy of Sciences, would "enable the US to establish its control of the energy market 20 years from now and put the rest of the world on its knees as hydrocarbons run out." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml;jsessionid=ZEVRXPOZALR1FQFIQMFCFGGAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/05/01/wmoon01.xml&site=5&page=0 *Journey to the Dark Side* We've been wondering if the familiar man in the moon image will become disfigured when Russia, China and the US arrive on the moon and start scooping up the valuable Helium 3 fuel lying on the surface. Former Canadian Defense Minister Paul Hellyer has warned that the US plans to build a defense against alien intruders on the moon. Now NASA has announced plans to construct a base on the moon's far side. NASA says this base will be used for Earth studies, but the Earth cannot be seen from that side. Jonathan Leake writes in the London Times that NASA has announced plans for one of the largest spacecraft ever built to take people to the far side of the moon. A mother ship will go into orbit around the Earth. This will carry a smaller lunar lander, that will ferry astronauts back and forth to the moon. According to NASA, four astronauts will land on the far side of the moon to collect rocks and look for water, which is an absolute necessity if we're going to bring people there to mine the moon. International law specialist Virgiliu Pop says that the Outer Space Treaty provides that "anybody is allowed to use lunar ice, provided there is enough for others to use," but he feels that, "There will be legal implications when the time comes if and when water ice is finally extracted." He thinks that comets, which are essentially balls of ice, will be harnessed to use for water. These cannot be claimed by any single country and would be treated legally "like icebergs on Earth," even though they are flying through space rather than floating in the ocean. On space.com, Leonard David, quotes international diplomat Harold Bashor as saying, "For scientific purposes, a country could use water, minerals and other substances in quantities appropriate for the support of their missions as long as the existing balance of the lunar environment would not be disrupted¡¦ This is generally interpreted to mean that a country may not claim ownership of any resources until they have been extracted¡¦There are no rights of ownership for any natural resources." This means that the country that can get to the moon first, and scoop up as much Helium 3 as possible, is the country that will win the race, when it comes to nuclear fusion. It turns out there is already an international treaty in place to control this. Bashor says, "The Moon Treaty of 1979 provides that an international regime should be established when any exploitation of the Moon is 'about to become feasible.' The purpose of this regime would be the orderly and safe development, management, and sharing of the natural resources of the moon." This will be the first time the US has returned to the moon since the last Apollo mission in 1972. The true motives and activities of the team that lands on the far side of the moon will remain secret, since they will be cut off from radio contact with Earth and will communicate only with the mother ship. The first astronauts in the new program could land on the moon as early as 2015, although 2018 is more likely. NASA plans to send two crews to the moon each year for five years. But what they will REALLY be doing up there is still a question. ~ The source for this was unattributed *Russia Plans Mine On The Moon By 2020 *by Staff Writers Moscow (AFP) Jan 25, 2006 Russia is planning to mine a rare fuel on the moon by 2020 with a permanent base and a heavy-cargo transport link, a Russian space official said Wednesday. "We are planning to build a permanent base on the moon by 2015 and by 2020 we can begin the industrial-scale delivery... of the rare isotope Helium-3," Nikolai Sevastyanov, head of the Energia space corporation, was quoted by Itar-Tass news agency as saying at an academic conference. The International Space Station (ISS) would play a key role in the project and a regular transport relay to the moon would be established with the help of the planned Clipper spaceship and the Parom, a space capsule intended to tug heavy cargo containers around space, Sevastyanov said. Helium-3 is a non-radioactive isotope of helium that can be used in nuclear fusion. Rare on earth but plentiful on the moon, it is seen by some experts as an ideal fuel because it is powerful, non-polluting and generates almost no radioactive by-product. Source: Agence France-Presse http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Russia_Plans_Mine_On_The_Moon_By_2020.html *Helium-3 factfile* January 5, 2007 Helium-3 was discovered in lunar samples brought back from the Apollo missions in the late 1960s and 1970s. Some scientists estimate that there are more than 100 million tonnes of helium-3 on the moon - more than enough to power the planet for hundreds of years. Theoretically, space engineers would super-heat the Moon's surface, process the helium-3 gas that lies at a depth of about nine feet and return it to earth to process it in fusion reactors. But despite Russian claims, the American energy department is not currently funding any helium-3 fusion research - an indication that Washington still needs to be convinced the project is worthwhile. Russia and China take it much more seriously if only because many believe that the country that controls the production of helium-3 will also enjoy superpower status as the world's dominant energy supplier. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=ZEVRXPOZALR1FQFIQMFCFGGAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/05/01/wmoon101.xml shempmcgurk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Anybody heard about it? > > My limited understanding of it is that it is the only element that > can be safely used in the nuclear fusion process. With a supply of > helium 3, we can have oodles and oodles of safe, clean energy. One > metric ton of helium 3 will provide all the energy needs of 10 > million Americans for a year. > > So where does helium 3 come from? It is emited from the sun. The > only problem is that the Earth's atmosphere blocks it from coming > down to us...very, very little gets through. > > The moon, however, has no atmosphere. That's why the moon rocks that > the Apollo astronauts brought back with them from the moon have > plenty of helium 3 in them. The sun has been raining down helium 3 > on the moon for, well, millions of years, I guess. > > It's estimated that there is more than 1 trillion tonnes of helium 3 > that can be extracted from the moon's soil. 6 billion people on > Earth and all we'll need each year for ALL our energy needs is about > 600 tonnes. > > And that's why China, the Russians, the Japanese, and the Europeans > are all in a race to get to the moon. > > Once we start a mining operation there and bring the stuff back, > we'll get all the clean energy we need. > > So, in the meantime, burn all the fossil fuels you want 'cause we're > not going to need 'em anyway in a few decades. >
