Helium-3 apparently is in plentiful supply on the moon and is an attractive, safe and stable raw material for fusion reactions ? The Russians are planning to mine it and bring it on home. [via Nova Spivak’s Minding the Planet]
Never heard of that before ? In what form can it exist on the moon, not gas surely, and if waterless and inert, what form ?
Aha – I see it’s not a new idea, at least 8 years old – the speculative bit is whether the quantities actually exist adsorbed in moon dust (ex-solar “wind” radiation), and whether practically extractable. Attractive numbers, though as ever, it’s never the numbers that count.