Helium3 Pillaging The Moon

PILLAGING THE MOON FOR THE PROMISE OF SPACE ENERGYBetween 1969 and 1972, Apollo astronauts brought just under 842 pounds of rocks and regolith back from the Moon. In 1985, engineers at the Universityof Wisconsin discovered significant amounts of Helium-3 in the lunar soil.
Helium-3 is a stable isotope of helium -- the gas we use to fill party balloons with -- and is notable because it's missinga neutron, an important property that means we can used it in nuclear fusion reactions to produce clean energy. Unfortunately, our most plentiful stores of the isotope are a quarter of a millionmiles away.
ANALYSIS: This Moon was Made for Mining (Helium-3)
Current nuclear power plants use fission reactors, splitting uranium nuclei to release energy. This heat turns water into steam that drivesa turbine to produce electricity. Unfortunately, radioactivity, spent nuclear fuel reprocessed into uranium, plutonium, and radioactive waste are by-products of this reaction.
To get away fromfission power, scientists have been working on nuclear fusion energy.
Nuclear fusion is the same reaction that fuels the sun; high temperatures and dense concentrations of gas allow positively-chargednuclei to get close enough to each other that the attractive nuclear force overcomes the repulsive electrical force. They fuse, producing new elements and energy. Helium as the fuel in this type ofreaction can provide energy without radioactivity and nuclear by-products.
Fusion reactors fueled by tritium and deuterium -- both isotopes of helium -- lose more energy than they produce, making thempoor fuel sources. But fusion reactions between Helium-3 and deuterium, which creates normal helium and a proton without a neutron, wastes less energy. It's the proton that's important; manipulating itin an electric field produces energy. The Helium-3 fusion process is about 70 percent efficient compared to coal and natural gas, which are only about 20 percent efficient.
ANALYSIS: Asteroid...