The Quest To Find Nuclear Fuel On the Moon (businessweekme.com)

Bloomberg Businessweek Middle East reports: India's space program wants to go where no nation has gone before -- to the south side of the moon. And once it gets there, it will study the potential for mining a source of waste-free nuclear energy that could be worth trillions of dollars. The nation's equivalent of NASA will launch a rover in October to explore virgin territory on the lunar surface and analyze crust samples for signs of water and helium-3. That isotope is limited on Earth yet so abundant on the moon that it theoretically could meet global energy demands for 250 years if harnessed....

[A]ccomplishing feats on the cheap has been a hallmark of the agency since the 1960s. The upcoming mission will cost about $125 million -- or less than a quarter of Snap Inc. co-founder Evan Spiegel's compensation last year, the highest for an executive of a publicly traded company, according to the Bloomberg Pay Index... The upcoming launch of Chandrayaan-2 includes an orbiter, lander and a rectangular rover. The six-wheeled vehicle, powered by solar energy, will collect information for at least 14 days and cover an area with a 400-meter radius. The rover will send images to the lander, and the lander will transmit those back to ISRO for analysis. A primary objective, though, is to search for deposits of helium-3. Solar winds have bombarded the moon with immense quantities of helium-3 because it's not protected by a magnetic field like Earth is.
The European Space Agency points out that helium-3 isotope isn't radioactive and "would not produce dangerous waste products." And one former member of the NASA Advisory Council estimates that the moon-derived fuel could generate enough power to meet the world's energy demands for between two at least two centuries.

Comments

If Wishes Be Horses

[mschwanke97402]

I think they forgot about a thing or two. For one, after like 50 years, commercial fusion power is still 50 years off. For two, returning mass to the earth going to be cheap. For three, building a mining infrastructure on the moon will be exorbitantly expensive. There are already simpler, cheaper options here on earth.

Praiseworthy, but...

[OneHundredAndTen]

Quite frankly, the rest of the world would take India and its government a bit more seriously if, instead of making big announcements to the effect that they can pee farther than anybody, they announced the investment in the implementation of a policy to supply with running water, electricity and sanitation to the more than 600 million Indian citizens who lack such basic services.

Re:Praiseworthy, but...

[AmiMoJo]

India is trying to help all it's citizens with infrastructure, but it can't do that if it remains poor and dependent on aid money. The space program is profitable, it helps the whole country by bringing in revenue.

This isn't a pissing competition. It's a demonstration that they can land a rover on the moon and analyze samples for only $125M, which is well within the budget of many corporations and other space agencies that may then decide to buy that service. They need to demonstrate it to build confidence and get insurance for commercial loads.

Re:Still don't know how to do practical fusion

[careysub]

He3 makes things better, but I don't see how it helps enough.

Really it makes things far worse.

The only area where it helps is reducing the neutron damage and activation of the inner reactor parts, which are estimated to run only 5-8% of the capital contribution to the cost of electricity. But the reaction itself is ten thousand times harder to do (D/D fusion is only a few hundred times harder). We have good ideas for doing D/T fusion, that should work (at unaffordable cost) in several decades. We have none for He-3/D fusion, at this point it while the reaction is real, the technology is wishing for pink unicorns.

And then there is the fuel cost. One kilogram of D can be bought today for $3000. To get the equivalent amount of He-3 from the Moon you have to process ~300,000 tons of regolith on the Moon, and ship it back to Earth. Show me any sort of conceptual process that can do this for a penny a ton. Here on Earth currently total ore extraction and processing costs are in the range of $2 to $200 per ton, it is not going to be 100 to 10,000 times cheaper on the Moon, rather we can expect the reverse to be true.