Moon Mining - why major powers are eyeing a lunar gold rush. *hint: energy

I do a lot of work with NASA to overcome some of the challenges in space for electronics. In a private conversation with a now retired director while he was employed at NASA and reporting directly to Jim Bridenstine, the NASA administrator appointed by President Trump, he told me that Mars is a distraction and that the real push for the Artemis and Gateway programs is to mine the moon for Helium 3 before China stakes out claims on the moon.

He told me that a dime wafer of Helium 3 used in a small home reactor could power your entire home for 10 years. A few small grains in a "flux capacitor" could power an electric auto for more than a year. Cleanly, with no radiation, and disposal of spent fuel not a problem.

Reuters - European Space Agency/ NASA

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HELIUM-3

Helium-3 is an isotope of helium that is rare on earth, but NASA says there are estimates of a million tonnes of it on the moon.

This isotope could provide nuclear energy in a fusion reactor but since it is not radioactive it would not produce dangerous waste, according to the European Space Agency.

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Mining the moon for helium-3

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One ton of helium-3 has the energy equivalent to 50,000,000 barrels of oil and is worth about $3 billion. Scientists believe there is enough helium-3 on the moon to cleanly power the Earth for tens of thousands of years, ridding our dependency on dirty and finite fossil fuels.

For the United States alone, it would only take one space shuttle’s worth of helium-3 to power the entire country for a year. If that were the same amount of oil, it wouldn’t be enough for some to power their cars for an entire year.

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Lately, the quest to get to Mars has received a whole lot of attention, but behind the scenes is an ongoing race to develop a process for mining the moon for its helium-3. China in particular has been very vocal about their intentions, planning to touch down on the moon by 2017 and have fully operational strip mines on the lunar surface by 2035.

At $3 billion/ton for an estimated resource of 1.2 million tons, the value of the moon in helium-3 alone is now so astronomical that there is no Earthly currency practical enough to represent it.

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