Two space shuttles filled with helium-3 are enough to produce energy for the United States for a whole year. But Washington is facing rivals China and Russia in this new race.We’ve all heard of arms races, space races, even peace races.
But there is a race that is completely out of the public eye. It is a race to determine who will be the first to exploit helium-3 in space in significant quantities to develop nuclear fusion reactors that do not generate hazardous nuclear waste and pollutants. other infection.
“Outer space holds a near limitless source of energy and raw materials, from helium-3 fuel on the Moon for clean fusion reactors, to heavy metals and volatile gases from asteroids. , which can be collected for use on Earth and in space,” said former CIA space analyst Tim Chrisman.
Chrisman has also served in military intelligence and is a co-founder of the Foundation for the Future, an advocacy group for science education and creating the infrastructure to live and work in space. . “China will almost certainly use whatever resources it can get to compete in this race,” he told the Jerusalem Post in an interview.Mr. Chrisman said that Beijing is moving towards potential revolutions in the field of energy and materials extraction in space. They could make America fall behind.
China has an advantage because its economic and military components are virtually inseparable. The United States, meanwhile, faces the greater challenge of assembling and unifying the disparate dimensions of national power in pursuit of a challenging long-term mission.
Expert Chrisman commented, finishing first in the race for Heli-3 could be like launching the first satellite in the space race of Russia and the US.
“It will be a major political and diplomatic victory. That victory depends a lot on how Helium-3 can be mined, if it can be quickly used for [on-site] power and energy or safely returned to Earth. It opens up the potential for dramatic change,” said Chrisman.Scientists say two space shuttles filled with helium-3 in their cargo hold – about 40 tons of gas – could power the United States for a year at current consumption rates.
Professor Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist of the China Lunar Exploration Program, recently said that the Moon is rich in helium-3 and this supply can “address humanity’s energy needs in as little as about 10,000 years”.
Several major institutions in China are currently studying rocks collected from the Moon by the Chang’e 5 mission for research, including evaluating the material as a potential source of fusion energy.The Chang’e 5 spacecraft, launched in November 2020, brought 1.73 kg of material back to Earth from the Moon last December. A first batch of 31 samples, weighing nearly 17.5 grams, including fine grains, basalt fragments and glass, was delivered to 13 Chinese facilities in July this year.
“The main goal of the study was to determine the content of Helium-3 in the lunar soil, the extraction parameters of Helium-3, showing at what temperature we can extract helium and how helium-3 has attached to it. earth on the Moon,” Huang Zhixin, a researcher with the Science and Technology Department of the Uranium Geological Research Institute in Beijing, told China National Television in late August.
Meanwhile, on the US side, Solar System Resources has signed a contract to supply 500 kg of Helium-3 extracted from the Moon to the US Nuclear Corporation in the period from 2028-2032.
Unlike Earth, which is protected by a magnetic field, the Moon is bombarded by large amounts of Helium-3 from the solar wind. The amount of Helium-3 deposited on the Moon is therefore much more than on Earth. Estimated reserves of Helium-3 on Earth are only about 500 kg, which is difficult to meet the needs of humanity. Meanwhile, the soil on the lunar surface contains at least 1 million tons of helium-3. Experts have calculated that 100 tons of Helium-3 can meet the world’s electricity needs for one year, and 1 million tons is enough for 10,000 years!
The fusion reactor technology itself has been plagued with various obstacles over the decades. But some experts say the substantial supply of helium-3 could be the necessary “game changer”.China is on track to launch a megawatt-scale space-based solar power station around 2030, with key tests set to take place in 2022, Chrisman said.
As for the US, the former Trump administration has been actively interested in space, announcing that the US will return astronauts to the Moon by 2024 and establish the Space Force as the newest branch of the US military. American team.
The US also proposed a global regulatory framework for mining on the Moon, known as the Artemis Agreement, to encourage commercial exploitation of Earth’s natural satellites and other celestial bodies. The Artemis Agreement has been signed by Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Japan, Luxembourg, Italy and the UAE.
The US space agency (NASA) has plans to build a permanent base in lunar orbit called Gateway, similar to the ISS. From there, the agency hopes to build a base on the surface of the Moon, where it can harness the resources needed to send the first astronauts to Mars.
In 2019, China made history when it became the first country to land a probe on the dark side of the Moon. The country has chosen a different approach in the space energy race. Since the Artemis Agreement was first announced, Beijing has approached Russia to cooperate in building a research facility on the Moon.
