Why the Moon’s helium-3 is being called “moon gold,” and why global superpowers including U.S., Russia and China want it first.

Going to be some very expensive gas.

"Apollo samples typically showed helium-3 concentrations measured in parts per billion. That means enormous volumes of regolith must be processed to extract useful gas. The basic industrial recipe is straightforward on paper. "

  • espurr@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    5·
    8 days ago

    Lunarians can never go back to Earth because their bones will be so weak…

    • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
      3·
      8 days ago

      If the industrial base is there you could build an angled gyroscope to add the necessary gravity. Although realistically much of the processing and shipping would be automated anyway. Unless AI gets really good some humans would still be necessary for oversight but reasonably with only a couple of seconds time delay that could be done from Earth.

      If we were doing asteroid mining out in the belt that would definitely require some sort of habitat though. Again, assuming we don’t get AGI or uploading humans to software or something like that.

    • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      8 days ago

      Yet another reason we’ll never move into space. That’s where Bio of a Space Tyrant gets it right. Humans are able to harness gravity and make it variable. If we could do that, 95% of solar system exploration issues are magically gone.

      • Skullgrid@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        8 days ago

        The launch to 23 seconds was the greatest game ever. So many incredible designs, leading to incredible moments. I’m still using my day job playmat for winter 2015 as a giant mousepad.

        Then they fucked it up with board wipes and resource hate, and unconditional tagging.

  • Victor@lemmy.worldEnglish
    34·
    8 days ago

    We cannot be fucking with our moon, else we will shoot our own ecosystems in the foot.

    • krooklochurm@lemmy.caEnglish
      41·
      8 days ago

      All the moon does it control the tide.

      It’s a barren irradiated, lifeless rock.

      Short of blowing it up, to my knowledge there is virtually nothing we could do on said moon that would affect us at all on earth.

      • Victor@lemmy.worldEnglish
        24·
        8 days ago

        All the moon does it control the tide.

        Yah!! 😜 That’s not all though, surely.

        • MaggiWuerze@feddit.orgEnglish
          11·
          8 days ago

          We could lower the entire lunar surface by several meter and not have a dent in the tidal effect