A Bucket of Helium3

[rogerinnh]

The mining of Helium3 from the soil o fthe lunar surface is often given as a justification for a return to theMoon mission or even the establishment of a permanent manned presence on the Moon. Helium3 is an ideal substance for use in the efficient nuclear generation of electrical energy. Helium, generated and thrown off by the Sun in huge quantities, is converted by cosmic rays into Helium3, which ends up on the Moon but not on Earth because of the magnetospehere of the Earth.<br />So, I'm wondering, could we take a bucket or so of plane old Helium, loft into a really high orbit (outside of the magnetosphere) or maybe even further out into Solar orbit, leave it there for a while (years?) and let the cosmic rays do their thing, converting it into Helium3, and then just retrieve the bucket again, with a nice supply of Helium3. According to one source, 220 pounds of Helium3 is worth about $141 million. Might be worth tossing a few buckets of it up into space for a while.

 

[bobvanx]

From http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/helium3_000630.html<br /><br />"When the solar wind, the rapid stream of charged particles emitted by the sun, strikes the moon, helium 3 is deposited in the powdery soil."<br /><br />This makes me think the sun's inefficiency is producing He-3, rather than cosmic ray bombardment. Over billions of years, the moon has sopped up enough He-3 to provide thousands of year's worth of fusion power.<br /><br />Stray thought: we should strip-mine the far side of the moon first, so we don't have to look at it from Earth.

 

[rogers_buck]

He3-D fusion can occur for a much smaller reaction cross section than for other fusile materials (several orders of magnitude ~4). The more compact plasma is easier to sustain since it does not loose energy through bremstrahlung radiation. <br /><br />For this reason, I pressume it is a more attractive issotope mix that Tritium-Dueterium, etc.. Tritium-Deuterium fusion has a similar advantage over Deuterium-Deuterium fusion. That is why Tritium is used in compact thermo-nuclear weapons as an initiator for deuterium-deuterium fusion.<br /><br />Tritium is expensive to come by and is hard to manage. I wonder if the first application of lunar He3 might be to replace Tritium for a new generation of nuclear weapons? The fission initiator might be reduced from a two stage system to a single stage making the nuke more environmentally friendly. Since the current administration is developing nuclear bunker busters that they would consider using, maybe the development of an environmentally friendly thermo-nuclear He-Bomb would be something they would put on the table?<br /><br />I mention this because it kind of smacks of the original entry barrier to nukes in the first place. A national project. The rockets that deliver them. A national project. And then He3 from the moon. A national project. All the time the entry bar gets raised. The Jones's can't keep up.<br /><br />I don't approve of this perversion, but given the persent climate that rationalizes creating a nuke that might be used, I am suspicious...<br /><br /><br />

 

[bobvanx]

<font color="yellow"> environmentally friendly thermo-nuclear He-Bomb</font><br /><br /><font size="24">ROTFLMAO!!!</font>

 

[bobvanx]

HEE HEE hee...<br /><br />HA! Hoo! Hee hee hee<br /><br /><sniff /><br /><br />Oh, my Goodness, I haven't had a good laugh like that in a long time. And, AND! I notice you echo a secret hope of my own.<br /><br />I would dearly love to see the bar raised to be part of the nuclear club. I would love to see an He bomb... built on the Moon. Let nuclear power rule in the solar system, where the danger to human life is already so great that the added risk of going nuclear is trivial.<br /><br />Save the Earth for other forms of energy and silliness.<br /><br />I would support 100% any treaty that required further nuclear development to occur beyond GEO. And imagine if I could convince the no-nukes crowd that all that "terrible" uranium and plutonium ore sitting in the ground in Canada and Hungary was going to go away forever, out to Luna and beyond!<br /><br />Seriously, though, we should set up our nuclear labs on the moon.

 

[a_lost_packet_]

<font color="yellow">..environmentally friendly thermo-nuclear He-Bomb..</font><br /><br /><chuckles /><br /><br />That's a classic. Somebody sticky that! <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="1">I put on my robe and wizard hat...</font> </div>

 

[bobvanx]

<font color="yellow">Most H-bombs are wrapped in a Li blanket, </font><br /><br />Suddenly, Russia's proficiency with Li/Al cryogenic fuel tanks makes more sense to me. What I mean is, I've wondered for years why the DC-X was stalled, waiting for a tank from Russia to get built. Since engineering in one area spills into another, and the US has less Li than them, it now makes sense that they'd have the ability and the "extra" Li to make cryofuel tanks.

 

[bobvanx]

Well then I guess I'm still mystified why the DC-X team get held up so long, waiting for their Li/Al tank from Russia.

 

[rogerinnh]

This certainly got off-topic mighty quickly.<br /><br />According to an article in the October 2004 Popular Mechanics (I know, I know, not the greatest source of scientific information) it says that the Helium emitted in the Solar wind is subsequently hit by cosmic rays which turn it into Helium3, and a portion of that Helium3 is subsequently deposited on the Moon (and elsewhere throughout the Solar System, of course).<br /><br />Thus my initial question about putting some containers of Helium out in space in orbit somewhere and just letting it get bombarded by cosmic rays and then retrieving it.<br /><br />Anyone care to offer insights into this scenario?

 

[bobvanx]

<head swivels back to the intent of the thread><br /><br />I guess the big unknown is how long the process takes, if this is how He-3 is formed. Launching a rocket, orbiting a payload at a very high orbit (or in a Genesis-style halo orbit) and revocering the payload seems like a Rube Goldberg method.<br /><br />I was surprised to read that He-3 can be "farmed" here on Earth.

 

[enderw]

I thought a neutron bomb was environmentally friendly? Or what about a "Red Mercury" fusion bomb. Either one should just kill the people not the land.

 

[nexium]

Licquid helium3, and ordinary helium boil at 4 degrees k, and have moderate vapor pressure at even lower temperatures. So an open bucket would have excessive losses of helium over the centuries required to produce significant helium3 from solar radiation.<br /> Are you sure helium 4 becomes helium 3 when bombarded with high speed ions?<br /> Putting a lid on the bucket would reduce the amount of ions reaching the helium with sufficent velocity, but would allow gas helium under high pressure. Most asteroids likely also have about 10 parts per billion of helium3 in the surface dust, so mining asteroiods may be less costly than helium3 from the moon. Neil

 

[bobvanx]

Are the Apollo asteroids the ones that are in close to the sun?<br /><br />I bet an Earth-approaching Apollo could get a strip mine operation set up, and then run for a couple orbits, and then processed He-3 booted over to Earth, for less than a lunar operation.<br /><br />And since it's closer to the sun and never crosses the Earth's magnetosphere, it probably has slightly richer deposits.

 

[silylene old]

Mining He-3 would be hugely inefficient and hugely expensive.<br /><br />"Manufacturing" He-3 by natural cosmic ray bombardment would take millions of years to develop a commercially useable amount given the relatively low fluences and the low quantum yields. This will never be a commerical process.<br /><br />The buckets of He-3 discussion remains but a dream and until we have some major breakthrough, science fiction. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><em><font color="#0000ff">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</font></em> </div><div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><font color="#0000ff"><em>I really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function.</em></font> </div> </div>