Reply With Quote
I'd be all for mining the moon - not that its economically feasible for a long time. The fact is that solar will likely take over well before mining the moon would be feasible on a large scale.
Yes, it looks like the mainstream media is beginning to take notice of this again:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovat...html?hpt=hp_t2
Unfortunately, it got a bad rap a while ago due to some over zealous scientists.
Who says nuclear energy has to be a bad thing? What happens if we start mining the moon though?
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Helium-3 is in scarce supply on Earth, much more abundant on the moon
Used as a fuel for nuclear fusion, there would be almost no radioactive waste
University of Wisconsin team has built a small reactor to show 3He might work as fuel
Former Apollo astronaut thinks U.S. needs new space policy, agency and moon return is vital
I'd be all for mining the moon - not that its economically feasible for a long time. The fact is that solar will likely take over well before mining the moon would be feasible on a large scale.
so, does the lack of the moon's atmosphere have something to do with the comparatively large concentration of He3 on the moon?Yes, it looks like the mainstream media is beginning to take notice of this again:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovat...html?hpt=hp_t2
Unfortunately, it got a bad rap a while ago due to some over zealous scientists.
Who says nuclear energy has to be a bad thing? What happens if we start mining the moon though?
Economically feasible is the key.
Things that make it more so than it used to be:
water on the moon (ice from comet strikes in dark craters)
launch technologies
Honestly, getting into space would be massively easier if we took a collective bootstrapping approach, i.e. build a little infrastructure designed to do both lower costs and build still more infrastructure designed to lower costs, and so on.
There is no shortage of ideas, some of them quite good on how to do so, with current technology.
"Helium-3 is in scarce supply on Earth"
I just read an article where the US strategic supply of helium-whatever is being sold off. And there won't be any more. What will birthday parties do without balloons? pure hydrogen?
we ain't gonna mine the moon.
"we're broke"
(the banksters took it all)
of course, if the banksters figure out how they can finance AND monopolize the moon, we're good to go.
Its hard to imagine us being able to visit the moon in anything lower than 5 years. And that's if we started today. The five years is a number I basically just pulled out of my ass but I think it sounds about right.
And thats just a visit. We've yet to establish any type of commercial infrastructure in orbit much less on the moon. In fact, the shear amount of energy needed to just get to the moon is immense and without energy advances in solar itself its hard to see how we would power any operations on the moon outside of a nuclear reactor. We've launched reactors into space before, though.
There are so many hurdles to doing this though. I don't see how you could accomplish it - even with a huge government effort which is not going to happen - in a timescale not measured in decades.
Given the likely hood that solar will be much more efficient in that time frame I just don't see the point. Thats not to say there might not be a niche for this at some point but at this point in time its hard to view it as economically viable.
The article is a bit misleading, I should have clarified it in the original post but I was running out of the door.
The ratio of Helium-3 to Helium-4 is a bit lower on earth because of radioactive decay processes. However, there may be as much Helium-3 in the earths mantle as there is on the moon. Of course, we can't access that so the figure of 30 kg is "for all practical purposes".
The difference is that on the moon, we could access it directly.
He-3 fusion is a thing of beauty. You dont get activation products from neutron emissions (that means the things surrounding your reactor dont become radioactive). All you get is an energetic proton, and those are quite easy to handle with electomagnetic (or inertial-electrostatic) containment. You get direct energy as opposed to needing to gather the energy indirectly (thermal).
Last edited by Agloco; 07-22-2011 at 04:14 PM.
There's a intersting report dated 2006 about this sort of undertaking. Seems that this sort of venture could take off qute quickly once the will to do so is in place.
http://gltrs.grc.nasa.gov/reports/20...006-214122.pdf
The Indians also sent a probe to the moon a while back (2009 perhaps?). Its mission was to map out different minerals. I think H-3 was one of those being looked for.
Fusion would need to be proven feasible first, then you'd see an explosion of activity in this area.
Saw that in the financial news. HOLEE IN !!!
Guess I know where my first 401k allotment will go.
now that's real news
nuclear fusion has been "some years away" for the last 50+ years
eg: "mainstream fusion" : http://news.sciencemag.org/physics/2...ering-critique
Back in the 90's I was involved in rapid research and development. The company I worked for was partnered with Intel. We called it "skunkworks." Nobody knew what we were doing until our choice time of releasing the information. We revolutionized CMP, here in Portland Oregon, to make such small and dense integrated circuits. I didn't know till looking it up, that the term originated with Lockheed Martin. From what I saw, this is how skunkworks, works!
should i dump all my stock into lockheed-martin, tbh?
No, but a stock like LMT is a good part of a portfolio.
Lol.....I don't recall making this thread?
Hmmmm. The Lockheed bit is quite interesting tho.
i thought i remembered you sharing this account with someone. is that correct?
sure, taxpayer-welfare-recipient LM sucking in Other People's Money to finance their fusion energy boondoggle.
thanks boutons will do!
Updated: Are old secrets behind Lockheed's new fusion machine?
http://news.sciencemag.org/physics/2...fusion-machine
lol butthurt brits that AMERICA once again out-thinks them
take my money AMERICA
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
