amicus
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2003
- Posts
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Moon For Sale
"Moon For Sale" is a Science Channel program I watched tonight, Original Air Date, 05/05/07
Among some of the 'sound bites' I jotted:
"Strip mine the moon for helium 3."
"Power the Earth Forever",
"Soil on the Moon is 40 percent Oxygen.",
"Drinking water made from Moon Soil"
Learned some things from this program, thought to share.
Keyword search: Helium three fusion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3
"...Cosmochemist and geochemist Ouyang Ziyuan from the Chinese Academy of Sciences who is now in charge of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program has already stated on many occasions that one of the main goals of the program would be the mining of helium-3, from where "each year three space shuttle missions could bring enough fuel for all human beings across the world."[19]
In January 2006 the Russian space company RKK Energiya announced that it considers lunar helium-3 a potential economic resource to be mined by 2020..".[20]
http://www.*************/helium3/
"...The moon is said to have an abundance of Helium 3, in fact somewhere around 1,100,000 metric tonnes. In retrospect it will take only an estimated 100 tonnes to power the earth for a year.
the Chinese plan to land on the moon in 2017 to do research on the moon and to look for Helium 3.
The following year, the United States of America plans to return to the moon and set up a base. Should the US try to speed things up so that they claim the rights to the Helium 3?..."
http://www.engr.wisc.edu/wiscengr/issues/feb97/helium.html
Helium Three as a New Source of Energy for Earth
By Dan Pierpont
"...Looking into the twenty-first century, the need for an alternative energy source to fuel the world's demand for more power, is becoming increasingly apparent. How long can the world's oil reserves last? How long can we use coal for combustion? Is nuclear power a safe and endless energy source? What happens when the earth's natural resources finally run dry? All of these problems could be solved if we could find a new abundant energy source. Well, it just so happens that we have a new energy source that we are not taking advantage of. Helium three or 3He fusion could solve the energy problems of the world for centuries to come. 3He is found here on earth in relatively small amounts, which makes it very difficult to recover. However, it is present in large quantities other places in the galaxy, most importantly, the moon.."
***
"...One day Dean Bollinger, the Dean of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, was lecturing about energy in an Introduction to Engineering class, and he explained a very interesting idea. Let's think ahead a minute and pretend we could fly our space shuttle Discovery to the moon. If we could land the space shuttle on the moon, then fill the cargo with canisters of 3He mined from the surface, and bring the shuttle back to earth that 3He cargo could supply the entire electrical power needs of the United States for an entire year. That strikes me as an awful lot of energy, for such a small amount of 3He, and in fact the energy payback for one kilogram of 3He is ~250. In other words, the energy you receive from fusion is 250 times the energy you put into obtaining the 3He. This is amazing considering the payback for nuclear fission of uranium is ~10 and coal combustion is ~11. Of course the payback of ~250 for 3He does not include the energy needed to make a fusion plant, and the energy used to make the fusion occur. However, even if we subtract this from the ~250, the energy payback is ~ 44, which is still significantly larger than all other current forms of energy.. ."
~~~
In light of recent discussions, on this forum and elsewhere, this served as a reminder to me that we cannot predict the future; we do not know in advance how problems, such as the energy crisis, may be solved.
There seemed to be a great deal of scientific enthusiasm on the program, "Moon for Sale", and in the websites I visited.
Enjoy...
amicus...
"Moon For Sale" is a Science Channel program I watched tonight, Original Air Date, 05/05/07
Among some of the 'sound bites' I jotted:
"Strip mine the moon for helium 3."
"Power the Earth Forever",
"Soil on the Moon is 40 percent Oxygen.",
"Drinking water made from Moon Soil"
Learned some things from this program, thought to share.
Keyword search: Helium three fusion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3
"...Cosmochemist and geochemist Ouyang Ziyuan from the Chinese Academy of Sciences who is now in charge of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program has already stated on many occasions that one of the main goals of the program would be the mining of helium-3, from where "each year three space shuttle missions could bring enough fuel for all human beings across the world."[19]
In January 2006 the Russian space company RKK Energiya announced that it considers lunar helium-3 a potential economic resource to be mined by 2020..".[20]
http://www.*************/helium3/
"...The moon is said to have an abundance of Helium 3, in fact somewhere around 1,100,000 metric tonnes. In retrospect it will take only an estimated 100 tonnes to power the earth for a year.
the Chinese plan to land on the moon in 2017 to do research on the moon and to look for Helium 3.
The following year, the United States of America plans to return to the moon and set up a base. Should the US try to speed things up so that they claim the rights to the Helium 3?..."
http://www.engr.wisc.edu/wiscengr/issues/feb97/helium.html
Helium Three as a New Source of Energy for Earth
By Dan Pierpont
"...Looking into the twenty-first century, the need for an alternative energy source to fuel the world's demand for more power, is becoming increasingly apparent. How long can the world's oil reserves last? How long can we use coal for combustion? Is nuclear power a safe and endless energy source? What happens when the earth's natural resources finally run dry? All of these problems could be solved if we could find a new abundant energy source. Well, it just so happens that we have a new energy source that we are not taking advantage of. Helium three or 3He fusion could solve the energy problems of the world for centuries to come. 3He is found here on earth in relatively small amounts, which makes it very difficult to recover. However, it is present in large quantities other places in the galaxy, most importantly, the moon.."
***
"...One day Dean Bollinger, the Dean of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, was lecturing about energy in an Introduction to Engineering class, and he explained a very interesting idea. Let's think ahead a minute and pretend we could fly our space shuttle Discovery to the moon. If we could land the space shuttle on the moon, then fill the cargo with canisters of 3He mined from the surface, and bring the shuttle back to earth that 3He cargo could supply the entire electrical power needs of the United States for an entire year. That strikes me as an awful lot of energy, for such a small amount of 3He, and in fact the energy payback for one kilogram of 3He is ~250. In other words, the energy you receive from fusion is 250 times the energy you put into obtaining the 3He. This is amazing considering the payback for nuclear fission of uranium is ~10 and coal combustion is ~11. Of course the payback of ~250 for 3He does not include the energy needed to make a fusion plant, and the energy used to make the fusion occur. However, even if we subtract this from the ~250, the energy payback is ~ 44, which is still significantly larger than all other current forms of energy.. ."
~~~
In light of recent discussions, on this forum and elsewhere, this served as a reminder to me that we cannot predict the future; we do not know in advance how problems, such as the energy crisis, may be solved.
There seemed to be a great deal of scientific enthusiasm on the program, "Moon for Sale", and in the websites I visited.
Enjoy...
amicus...
