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China to Land on Moon Around 2017
smooth wombat writes "China has announced that it plans to land on the moon around the year 2017. They also plan to set up a moon-based astronomical telescope, measure the thickness of the moon's soil as well as the amount of helium-3 on the moon. Helium-3 is regarded by some researchers as the perfect non-polluting fuel source. China's first lunar orbiter could blast off as early as 2007, coinciding with its third manned space trip in which possibly three men would orbit Earth in Shenzhou VII and conduct a space walk."
Helium-3 is really just an excuse. We can make all the helium-3 we want here on earth for much cheaper than it would ever be from the moon.
Helium-3 is a decay product of tritium (which has a reasonable half-life). Tritium can be produced by neutron bombardment of lithium targets. That's what it takes to make the stuff here on Earth
What about on the moon? Its crust is only 20 ppm helium. That's just helium, though - He3 is 10 ppb. That's a tiny, tiny amount of He3. Given that mining, refining, and shipping costs in extraterrestrial environments are going to be preposterously high for the near future, realistic recovery is just right out.
What about its applications? First off, first-gen nuclear reactors aren't going to be able to burn He3. You'd have to scale up something like ITER far beyond its already gargantuan size to think about getting that sort of confinement. Some potential reactors, such as inertial electrostatic fusion or focus fusion, should be able to scale to generate power from He3 (if they were able to pass break-even - a big if). Yet, such reactors could be similarly scaled to use B11+p fusion, which is a much better proposition than He3 fusion.
So, I don't hold much credence for He3 fusion, and even less for getting it from the moon.
"He's a god; it'll take more than one shot." â" Lady Eboshi, Mononoke Hime
"sits on wast dollar reserves. and can easily drive the value of dollar down the drain and/or raise the US interest rate a few points."
You see that is the funny thing. If China drove down the value of the dollar then cheap stuff from china wouldn't be cheap! The less reason for jobs to be out sourced and production would shift back to the US. China can not afford to devalue the dollar or have it's currency go up. The last thing they want is to become a consumer economy instead of an exporting one. What you think would hurt the US would actually in the long run help it.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Fundamental limitations on plasma fusion systems not in thermodynamic equilibrium.
Keep fucking dreaming kids.
China has always been a poor farming country until recently.
Poor farming countries tend not to be able to carry out voyages with a fleet of over 300 ships of which some are the size of a small aircraft carrier, halfway around the world (and some say all the way around the world) nearly 100 years before Columbus.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Actually, Lockheed Martin Engineering's team used the English system while Nasa was expecting Metric:
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric
Besides standard being an idiotic system and that even England switch away from it's own system in measuring many things, most people learn in 6th grade science class to use Metric dealing with science.
It seems engineers in Lockheed dropped the ball, not the Ivory Tower academics at Nasa.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.