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There's plenty of helium in the solar system (granted, a bit further out) and the sun is producing 595 million tons per second.
by r2_pilot 2y ago
There's plenty of helium in the solar system (granted, a bit further out) and the sun is producing 595 million tons per second.
- fragmede 2y agoLet me guess, you have plans that to mine that helium by working at night?
- exe34 2y agoyes, and it'll be very easy to capture in commercial quantities, I'm sure.
- r2_pilot 2y agoWhat, you've never heard of star-lifting? Or just getting it from Saturn? Commercial/economic quantities are all about the necessity versus scarcity, and helium has unique properties that can't be synthesized in sufficient quantities even if you ran all of Earth off fusion of hydrogen into helium.
- exe34 2y ago> Or just getting it from Saturn? always love a good laugh in the morning! I'm as much a fan of sci-fi as anybody, and the last 5 years of space x should make anybody optimistic about the future of space exploration, but strip mining Saturn is a long way away from providing for the needs of MRI machines and other essential modern technology. what will happen first is that the prices will rise and we will stop using it in party balloons, and then it'll be too expensive for the lower 95% of the population for any use at all for decades/centuries - and that's even if we do manage to escape the local gravity well for good. even that's doubtful - space is just unbelievably hostile.