violate international law. Somehow everything I just said is real and not the backstory

of Fallout 4.

Hello again space cadets, Julian here for DNews. To reiterate, because I cannot stress

enough that this is real, China is seriously considering mining the moon. But not for anything

so worthless as gold or platinum. No no, for a rare isotope of helium called helium 3.

Helium 3 is different than 99.999% of helium on Earth, helium 4. Helium 3’s nucleus consists

of 2 protons and one neutron, and it’s theorized that it can be used for clean nuclear fusion.

However helium 3 hasn’t been given much attention because it’s extremely rare and

expensive. Currently Helium 3 is sold for about $1,000 per gram, or a billion dollars

per metric ton. By comparison at today’s prices platinum sells for a piddling 39.7

million dollars per metric ton.

Helium 3 may be rare here on earth, but it’s not on the moon. Or at least it’s much less

so. Helium 3 is in the solar wind that gets deflected away by our magnetosphere, but the

moon has no magnetic field and so Helium 3 has slowly been deposited on its surface over

billions of years. While it’s estimated the Earth only has 15 tons of the stuff total,

the moon may have between 1 and 5 million tons. That still means that hundreds of millions

of tons of lunar soil will have to be processed just to get one ton of helium 3.

So is all this just lunacy? Well right now, pretty much, yeah. But China isn’t planning

on doing it right this second. It’s all the dream of Ouyang Ziyuan of the Chinese

Academy of Sciences, and he’s shooting for the moon in the next 50 years. Which is probably

a good time frame, because as of right now, even if we could mine and ship Helium 3 from

the moon on a large scale, we wouldn’t be able to use it. Fusing helium 3 would require

much more initial energy than fusing hydrogen isotopes, so while it may produce power without

a radioactive byproduct, it’s still expected to be used in the second generation of fusion

reactors. And we still haven’t gotten to the first. But if Helium 3 can be used it

will yield hundreds of times more energy than it costs to mine and ship; only 40 tons of

it can meet the US’s energy demands for a year.

There’s also the question of who owns the moon. Personally I think if your flag is on

it, you have dibs, but apparently that’s not how it works. There’s actually a treaty

from 1967, called the “Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the

Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies” but

all it’s friends call it the Outer Space treaty. It’s been ratified by 102 countries,

including China, and in it, it states “the exploration and use of outer space shall be

carried out for the benefit of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind.”

Whether this means no one owns the moon or that everyone owns the moon is debated by

space lawyers, and yes, apparently that is an actual profession.

But China is starting to put feelers out, with the Chang’e 5 planned to land on the

moon and return with samples by 2017. If Helium 3 can be used for nuclear fusion, and if sending

missions to the moon and extracting it is economically viable, and if the international

community agrees to it, then maybe one day mining the earth for coal will sound as ridiculous

as mining the moon does now.

Space is one of my favorite topics but there’s a lot of junk information floating around

out there. Our own Amy Shira Teitel debunks 5 space myths in Life Noggin’s video over

here.

Do you have a favorite idea that sounds totally sci-fi but could actually become reality?

Let us know in the comments and I’ll see you next time on DNews.