This is the year for Moon Express, who just received another round of funding to pursue their goal of mining helium-3 from the moon.
This is the year for Moon Express, who just received another round of funding to pursue their goal of mining helium-3 from the moon.
We’ve all seen the footage of astronauts bouncing on the moon as if they were floating. What if they took a helium balloon up—would it float?
You don’t really hear about it in the U.S., but there is a moon race going on right now and it’s all centered around mining helium-3.
Helium is a finite resource on Earth, but the sun mass produces the stuff. Through an idea called stellar lifting, we might one day extract helium from the sun.
Imagine, something the size of a pea worth $5 million. That’s the value of helium-3 and while it’s rare on Earth, the moon is full of it. Why do you care?
It’s been suspected over 40 years, but thanks to NASA’s LADEE mission, we finally have confirmation of neon and helium in the moon’s atmosphere.
The answer to the world’s energy problems could be laying in the dust on our own moon.
Chinese scientists say that the rare Helium-3 isotope found on the moon could provide enough clean energy to power Earth for tens of thousands of years, ridding humanity of its dependence on finite fossil fuels.