Nasa & Russia's new Race to the moon.

[Lee H]

I overheard on the news the other day that NASA and Russia are now in a mini "space-race" to see who can get to the moon the quickest to setup and start mining the moon as a possible source of helium3 which they want to use for fusion energy generation.

While I sat there and ponder about fusion energy being clean and a great idea the alarm bells suddenly rang in the back of my head.

What happens if they mine the moon and remove say at least 1/10th of the moons total weight by shipping rocks back to earth for processing. I'm relatively sure that this "process" might affect the moons gravitiational field and if this does what would happen to the earth's tidal processes?

Would mining the moon cause adverse effects on the already fragile ecosystem that earth has now ?

[kalniel]

I can't even begin to imagine just how much stuff would make up 1/10 of the moons total weight.

I think all the mining we could possibly concieve would only really put a little scratch on the surface and have very little effect on anything. The amount of litter and waste products left there would more than make up for it

Not sure why people would want to fuse helium anyway - surely that's much harder and less efficient than creating helium from hydrogen?

[jagerm3ist3r]

Thats a very good point you make although at the moment the us no longer has a rocket powerful enough to actally reach the moon, the last one that could was the saturn rocket but that was retired years ago. There might also be a far larger problem the moon exerts a stabalising effect over our rotation keeping it a farily steady angle and speed so removing the gravitational effect the moon exerts may have far greater concequences. Also there will be huge logistical restrains such as transporting the stuff to and from the moon. Also wouldnt the rocks be radio-acive and so would require processing at sites able to deal with this which would make it very expensive. Did the report say how long they were thinking all of this would take place?

[dkmech]

Moon.
Major exports:
Helium for party baloons and fusion reactors
Major imports:
Litter, rubbish, Garbage

[schmunk]

I think this may be a joke, but just to be safe, stake your claim now!.

Helium is very not dense (what's the opposite of dense..?), so it couldn't possibly make up 10% by mass of the Moon.

Edit: Ok, not a joke, but very unlikely in the next few years... We don't even have a reactor capable of using the Helium3 yet.

[DavidM]

Not forgetting in "Space 1999" - the moon was used as a nuclear dumping ground...

[Lee H]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060125...N5bnN1YmNhdA--

Yahoo news's story on the russians idea to mine the moon

The reason why they want helium 3 ?

Simple... see the following image to see why

[Mike Fishcake]

Erm, they want it because it makes your voice squeaky 3 times faster than normal helium?

[jesusLOL]

It would be to expensive to mine and transport back.

Anyway the Chinese are going to beat everyone to it.

[badass]

Not sure why people would want to fuse helium anyway - surely that's much harder and less efficient than creating helium from hydrogen?

It requires less energy to start the Helium3+duterium reaction.
H bombs use it.

[badass]

I overheard on the news the other day that NASA and Russia are now in a mini "space-race" to see who can get to the moon the quickest to setup and start mining the moon as a possible source of helium3 which they want to use for fusion energy generation.

While I sat there and ponder about fusion energy being clean and a great idea the alarm bells suddenly rang in the back of my head.

What happens if they mine the moon and remove say at least 1/10th of the moons total weight by shipping rocks back to earth for processing. I'm relatively sure that this "process" might affect the moons gravitiational field and if this does what would happen to the earth's tidal processes?

Would mining the moon cause adverse effects on the already fragile ecosystem that earth has now ?

If its to be used in Nuclear reactions then they need bugger all of it by mas to create a tremendous amount of energy

[Dorza]

Lets not forget that the moon is already moving away from the earth at about 1" a year i believe. In many many years to come the affect the moon has on the earth will be too week to control tides and weather. The weather on the surface at that point will become very violent and probably uninhabitable.

The moon has an amazing affect on the earth right now. Though I feel by the time any of that will happen and if we still exist we'll probably have some sort of technology to bring the moon back to a stable orbit or some device to control the weather/tides.

[Pirate Pete]

If they remove as much through mining as you say they can why not replace it with rubbish from the earth?

im sure the clangers wont mind

[DavidM]

Take them some Heinz soup as well, it'll make a change for the Soup Dragon.