Helium-3: Mining the fuel of the future on the Moon
Why go back to the Moon? The question was posed more than half a century ago and is once again being asked as the Americans and the Chinese prepare to return to the Earth’s only natural satellite. The two superpowers are doing it this time with the intention of staying for longer periods than the brief visits made by astronauts in the 1960s and 1970s, and the geopolitical interest in this race is indisputable.
But there are other reasons too. There is, of course, the yearning, implicit in human nature, to push the limits of human potential. When asked why he planned to conquer Everest, climber George Mallory famously replied, “Because it’s there.” Perhaps this could also explain the first Apollo flights, but today that sense of adventure has been overshadowed by more prosaic motivations.
That the Moon is an excellent scientific laboratory may be one aspect driving the new explorers. There are still many questions to be answered about the Moon’s origin, its evolution and the evolution of the solar system’s first epochs. The absence of atmosphere and magnetic field provides very special conditions for astronomical observations on its surface. And the hidden face would be a perfect place to install radio telescopes, safe from electromagnetic disturbances generated on Earth. Though, of course, simple scientific curiosity may not justify the enormous cost of the undertaking.
