3 ms·
If there ever was any justification of using up our limited helium is this one. However, I wish for these types of projects they would use hydrogen instead. I
by salimmadjd 13y ago
If there ever was any justification of using up our limited helium is this one.
However, I wish for these types of projects they would use hydrogen instead. I understand the safety concern, but a century after Hindenburg, we should be able to make these safer. At least for non-human flights. Not to mention Hydrogen is a bit better in creating lift.
- Filligree 13y agoThe solution is, of course, for Google to build lunar fusion reactors to make helium and power the Earth.
- 3825 13y agoWe need a cheaper way to move freight between the Earth and the Moon first. I believe here is what Filligree is talking about if anyone else is curious. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3 > Materials on the Moon's surface contain helium-3 at concentrations on the order of between 1.4 and 15 ppb in sunlit areas, and may contain concentrations as much as 50 ppb in permanently shadowed regions. A number of people, starting with Gerald Kulcinski in 1986, have proposed to explore the moon, mine lunar regolith and use the helium-3 for fusion. Recently, companies as Planetary Resources have also stated to be interested in mining helium-3 on the moon. Because of the low concentrations of helium-3, any mining equipment would need to process extremely large amounts of regolith (over 150 million tonnes of regolith to obtain one ton of helium 3), and some proposals have suggested that helium-3 extraction be piggybacked onto a larger mining and development operation. (removed citation notes for readability)