Again,I'm turning to the experts here.On another board I frequent,a poster has claimed that the US is taking over the Moon because of the "vast amounts" of Helium 3 on the Moon & that it'll be the next Persian Gulf,but of this substance,not oil.Now I'm not a scientist,but isn't the Moon too warm for it to exist there? I could see Pluto or Charon,but the Moon?

Thanks in advance for any info....

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"An armed man is a citizen
An unarmed man is a subject"

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All off the top of my head and I'm not an expert (but I do have a B.Sc. in Chemistry):

1) Moon is too warm, helium is gaseous at temperatures above around 5 degrees Kelvin.

2) Moon's gravity is not strong enough to contain He-3 in the atmosphere. I tried to look up calculations online but couldn't find anything. Does anyone know the math to determine this? IIRC, the Earth's gravity is barely enough to contain He-3.

3) Why does this poster think He-3 is so valuable anyway?

Hope that helped.

BBC lunar Helium-3 story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/226053.stm

Sigh, looks like I was way off-base there. ops:

Didn't expect that the Lunar soil would trap the gas. I just figured there was no way the Moon's gravity could hold He-3 in the atmosphere for very long.

Uhhh......hydrogen maybe more important to the future than helium for a fuel source so I have no idea why they think He3 is so important.

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Light is faster than sound. "That's why some people appear bright until they speak"

WWGD (What Would GLP Do)

Inspected by #13

Dang it. Here is the reason for all the commotion..

http://www.wisinfo.com/postcrescent/...14263936.shtml

Stupid scientists. They need to teach public relations to scientists. They don't even have fusion working on a large scale and they are planning on using He3 to power these reactions.........................

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Light is faster than sound. "That's why some people appear bright until they speak"

WWGD (What Would GLP Do)

Inspected by #13

Huh?

Should I be sad when the token anti-space viewpoint comes from an astronomy professor? [-X

Yeah, particularly when it's so blatantly wrong. I doubt space is the solution to the energy problem, but increasing gasoline mileage obviously isn't--it's a stopgap at best. Maybe he's just interested in making sure the gasoline supply lasts until he's no longer a consumer.

I think what he means is that we should worry about not killing ourselves in the next fifty years or so more than we should worry about getting He-3 in the next hundred or so. A base big enough to get this stuff and ship it home is a LONG way off. A rocket that can bring it back cheap enough to use it... Then again I suppose we could use a railgun for that, but does the technology to build something like that even exist? Anyways, there are a lot of things we know will help solve our problems now; it'd be a mistake to ignore them in favor of a possible solution in the future.

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Anyone who believes in the warning of the bible (prophecies concerning the end time which is now) shall be benefited from my invention. Because they won't be stupid enough to pass this! -Alex Chiu

There is a wealth of information available at The Artemis Project/Society www.asi.org

The technology required to get He3 from the moon does not require anything new, just massive use of current tech. Processing can be done on the moon and the He3 can be shipped back relatively cheaply. You could probably make a rocket fuel from lunar soil that has been broken down into AL and O.

Space is the solution to the lack-of-energy problem. Solar energy can be advanced and it's use increased here. In space, solar will be even more important, especially if you want to avoid nuclear fission.

There is much that can be done on earth with fossil fuels as well. First we should reduce the use of fossil fuels and increase the availablity and use of bio fuels. Plants that took solar energy in then died to become oil and coal. We can synthesize that process with current plant bio-mass. It's still a hydrocarbon fuel, but it takes CO2 out of the atmosphere to make, then gets burned and gets back into the atmosphere. Humans have been burning wood for millenia. This is basically a more advanced version of that paradigm. The CO2-based greenhouse effect is driven by the use of previously locked-up CO2. Bio fuel use is a shallow cycle which does not increase the net amount of CO2 in the system.

Hydrocarbon fuels will be with us for a long time. It's portable energy. As much as we would like to make everything electric-only we'd carry more mass in batteries or flywheels unless a breakthrough occurs. Unless we all have electric roads to our garage, we'll need non-electric or hybrid vehicles.

How about this. Get congress to fund an electric power lane in the Interstate system paid for by tolls or taxes for electric or hybrid vehicles to use, so they can turn the gas engine off and get power from the "fifth" wheel or microwave beam. Then when they get off the system, they can use batteries or gas-hybrid system to get the rest of the way to their destination or refueling point.

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"Oh no no no I'm a rocket man Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone." -- Sir Elton John

J Pax

Why am I reminded of the old Steve Martin skit that begins, "First, get a million dollars..."

Actually I think the article that's making most of the comotion is one that got forwarded to me by an unfortunate friend that tends to lean to the woowoo side. I've tried tracking down the origin of the article but to no avail, I do have the author's name and after googling a bit, figured he writes to the lunitic fringe.

It's basically, the US is going to try to take over the world dribble.
[Edit: Figures, I post the article, do one more google and find it. Here it is.]