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The Outfall of a Helium-3 Crisis

Posted by samzenpus on from the mining-the-moon dept.

astroengine writes "The United States is currently recovering from a helium isotope crisis that last year sent low-temperature physicists scrambling, sky-rocketed the cost of hospital MRI's, and threw national security staff out on a search mission for alternate ways to detect dirty bombs. Now the panic is subsiding, what is being done to conserve, or replace, helium-3?"

2 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. an outlaw of balloons by Dan667 · · Score: 1, Troll

    based on how the government usually operates I expect this would be a typical response.

  2. Free market by snsh · · Score: 0, Troll

    If most of the helium-3 demand is driven by lung x-rays, and you suddenly need $5000 of He-3 instead of $500 of He-3 to do an x-ray, then the result will simply be fewer people and animals getting x-rays.

    Unless the situation is that government funded Medicaid/Medicare is going cover the $5000 cost for the x-ray, in which case the result will simply be the owners He-3 stockpiles getting insanely rich at the expense of taxpayers.