NASA Issues

[Cunningham]

Private industry will go to the moon if the government gets out of it's way so they can get the Helium 3 thats up there. That stuff is the reason that you hear about another country putting together a moon program every other month.

 

[torchbearer]

Private industry will go to the moon if the government gets out of it's way so they can get the Helium 3 thats up there. That stuff is the reason that you hear about another country putting together a moon program every other month.

helium-3 will power this planet in the post fossil fuel era. Clean, cheap energy that is in abundance on our moon.

 

[torchbearer]

We needs more congressmen with progressive scientific thinking.... I imagine myself, with the company of others on this board occupying congress and bring our great country into a better society!

 

[sirachman]

As for the whole Helium-3 moon thing... Near Earth Asteroids are much easier to get to (less fuel required and easier trajectories), have much more profitable contents, their resources are much easier to extract, they have no atmosphere so descent and docking with them is much easier than a moon landing, Helium-3 is very hard to seperate from the lunar regolith, and the lunar environment is not too friendly compared to the hostile yet relatively simple to occomodate vaccum surrouding asteroids.
Look up some stuff on asteroid mining its quite interesting. Don't mean to knock Helium-3 but rather point out the much better business model surrounding asteroid mineral extraction. Helium-3 extraction is extremely expensive/difficult and not cost affective for personal use or sale unless your customer is a "money is no object" government wanting to make a lunar base aka. USA. (At least with current technology)

 

[sirachman]

Solar and Nuclean Fission/Fusion are my proferred source (frankly both the same source and quite effective especially in space) so Helium-3 is a good resource for that reason. However regulations and difficulty of its extraction are the biggest problem. Once a presence is established on the moon that is also a costomer for the Helium-3 it will be a much more feasible project.

Solar arrays can also be constructed using lunar materials, and can be deployed in space or on the moon and will recieve much more sun due to lack of Earth's thick atmosphere. This energy can then be used there or transmitted to Earth using a type of microwave radiation beam (not the kind that cooks food a different frequency).

 

[sirachman]

Can't wait for a congress that is familiar with basic science, not to mention the dream of one that is actively knowledgeable of it.

 

[torchbearer]

As for the whole Helium-3 moon thing... Near Earth Asteroids are much easier to get to (less fuel required and easier trajectories), have much more profitable contents, their resources are much easier to extract, they have no atmosphere so descent and docking with them is much easier than a moon landing, Helium-3 is very hard to seperate from the lunar regolith, and the lunar environment is not too friendly compared to the hostile yet relatively simple to occomodate vaccum surrouding asteroids.
Look up some stuff on asteroid mining its quite interesting. Don't mean to knock Helium-3 but rather point out the much better business model surrounding asteroid mineral extraction. Helium-3 extraction is extremely expensive/difficult and not cost affective for personal use or sale unless your customer is a "money is no object" government wanting to make a lunar base aka. USA. (At least with current technology)

Oh, I am very open to better ways of getting energy... I plan to make some major impacts on the direction of our country as a congressman, and i'm not going to be able to do that if i don't listen to people who have more knowledge on these subjects than i do.

 

[JosephTheLibertarian]

Private industry will go to the moon if the government gets out of it's way so they can get the Helium 3 thats up there. That stuff is the reason that you hear about another country putting together a moon program every other month.

How hard could it be to get it done? You have the issue of getting a hold of the materials, then you get up there and try to extract some Helium 3 embedded in the upper layer of regolith. I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't cost THAT much, you can always try and get a non-profit project going.

 

[torchbearer]

It may be possible to farm our own helium-3 if we understand how it is formed we may be able to collect/manufacture it in low earth orbit.

 

[JosephTheLibertarian]

It may be possible to farm our own helium-3 if we understand how it is formed we may be able to collect/manufacture it on low earth orbit.

Yeah, there is some here on Earth but it's rare. Well, people are free to start something up, I'm not sure how much the government is regulating any of this.

 

[sirachman]

There are massive regulations on orbiting/deorbiting radioactive materials thus selling lunar mined h-3 to earth isnt very easy, and there are regulations against having nuclear reactors/bombs in space so making a reactor on the moon and selling to it/selling its energy is also not very possible.

Basically once all this is set up its possible, however currently simply mining stuff like iron, platinum, gold, etc from asteroids which are easier to get to in the first place is much easier.

Also:
Helium is present in the lunar regolith in quantities of ten to a hundred (weight) parts per million, and 0.003 to 1 percent of this amount (depending on soil). 2006 market price for He3 was about $46,500 per troy ounce ($1500/gram, $1.5M/kg), more than 120 times the value per unit weight of Gold and over eight times the value of Rhodium.
Thats alot of strip mining :/

 

[Cunningham]

How hard could it be to get it done? You have the issue of getting a hold of the materials, then you get up there and try to extract some Helium 3 embedded in the upper layer of regolith. I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't cost THAT much, you can always try and get a non-profit project going.

I would think that multiply companies could pool there resources and spread out the financial risk to get it done but I think I read somewhere that current anti-trust lays prohibit those type of combined activites. I'm not sure if that is true though.

 

[sirachman]

Raw resources and minerals could be mined from an asteroid in space using a variety of methods. Even a relatively small asteroid with a diameter of 1 km can contain billions of metric tons of raw materials.

In 2004, the world production of iron ore exceeded 1,000 million metric tons[1]. In comparison, a comparatively small M-type asteroid with a mean diameter of 1 km could contain more than 2,000 million metric tons of iron-nickel ore[2], or two to three times the annual production for 2004. The asteroid 16 Psyche is believed to contain 1.7×1019 kg of iron-nickel, which could supply the 2004 world production requirement for several million years. A small portion of the extracted material would also contain precious metals, although these would likely be more difficult to extract.

 

[Cunningham]

There are massive regulations on orbiting/deorbiting radioactive materials thus selling lunar mined h-3 to earth isnt very easy, and there are regulations against having nuclear reactors/bombs in space so making a reactor on the moon and selling to it/selling its energy is also not very possible.

Basically once all this is set up its possible, however currently simply mining stuff like iron, platinum, gold, etc from asteroids which are easier to get to in the first place is much easier.

Also:
Helium is present in the lunar regolith in quantities of ten to a hundred (weight) parts per million, and 0.003 to 1 percent of this amount (depending on soil). 2006 market price for He3 was about $46,500 per troy ounce ($1500/gram, $1.5M/kg), more than 120 times the value per unit weight of Gold and over eight times the value of Rhodium.
Thats alot of strip mining :/

I want nanite assemblers to come online sometime in the next 15 years. They would make all of this so much easier.

 

[sirachman]

Heck just go here:
http://www.permanent.com/

It itsn't being updated anymore as far as I can tell, however it is the best source of information on the net related to space resources, colonization, etc.

 

[JosephTheLibertarian]

We could bypass any government by just creating a society of dedicated individuals. We would get materials in countries where they're easiest to obtain, assemble where its easiest to assemble and finally launch from a place where we don't have to answer to any single government. A society, perhaps a micronation. A government, a people and an economy that all exists under the radar of macronations.

sirachman,

great site. http://www.permanent.com/ w00t!

 

[sirachman]

Glad you enjoyed.
Check out: www.InterPlanetaryVentures.org also, ask me if you have any questions about it. Just PM me.

~Adam

 

[Cunningham]

We could bypass any government by just creating a society of dedicated individuals. We would get materials in countries where they're easiest to obtain, assemble where its easiest to assemble and finally launch from a place where we don't have to answer to any single government. A society, perhaps a micronation. A government, a people and an economy that all exists under the radar of macronations.

sirachman,

great site. http://www.permanent.com/ w00t!

Looks like we got that back up plan if Ron doesn't win.

 

[sirachman]

Hah, if Ron does win all it will do is make it easier once we don't pay income tax and can invest all that much more into such a project ^^
Hah.
Revolution 2.0: Elect Ron Paul
Revolution 3.0: Space Edition



Joking aside, this is actually factually feasible.

 

[torchbearer]

The U.S. is sovereign and thus is not bound by any other regulations you mentioned.... No one has the authority to regulate space. I'd laugh in the face of anyone who proposes they possess such power.