I have done research on this. I have provided you with a link. Luke Spamwalker has as well. The benefits will far outweigh the costs.

I've read up on it too and the costs of trying to get it and make use of it are prohibitive atm. I don't have time to do a proper search atm though.

well I did come up with a brief thing here....it gives both sides which is what you have not done.

Economically unfeasible

Indeed for now, the economics of extracting and transporting helium 3 from the moon are also problematic. Even if scientists solved the physics of helium 3 fusion, "it would be economically unfeasible," asserted Jim Benson, chairman of SpaceDev in Poway, California, which strives to be one of the first commercial space-exploration companies. "Unless I'm mistaken, you'd have to strip-mine large surfaces of the moon."

While it's true that to produce roughly 70 tons of helium 3, for example, a million tons of lunar soil would need to be heated to 1,470 degrees Fahrenheit 00 degrees Celsius) to liberate the gas, proponents say lunar strip mining is not the goal. "There's enough in the Mare Tranquillitatis alone to last for several hundred years," Schmitt said. The moon would be a stepping stone to other helium 3-rich sources, such as the atmospheres of Saturn and Uranus.

Benson agreed that finding fuel sources in space is the way to go. But for him, H2O and not helium 3 is the ideal fuel source. His personal goal is to create gas stations in space by mining asteroids for water. The water can be electrolyzed into hydrogen or oxygen fuel or used straight as a propellant by superheating with solar arrays. "Water is more practical and believable in the short run," he said.

But proponents believe only helium 3 can pay its own way.

"Water just isn't that valuable," Schmitt said. Besides the helium, a mining process would produce water and oxygen as by-products, he says.



wads

Onwards the Aussie Spam Invasion!
TwoWongs rocks my world
campaiging for vitamin S
Quai Master is my muffin

This message last edited by wads on 4/10/2004 at 8:47:06 PM.

• Edit 1: 4/10/2004 8:47:06 PM