MINING ON MOON "So many resources which are extremely rare on Earth are abundant on the Moon," Jain says. "We shouldn't only be mining the Earth, we should be thinking of the Moon as our eighth continent."

WHY MINING ON MOON ?  Fusion reactors operating with deuterium-tritium fuel are impractical for commercial use. Among other things, the reaction produces large amounts of radiation in the form of neutrons.  Substituting helium-3 for tritium significantly reduces neutron production, making it safe to locate fusion plants nearer to where power is needed the most, large cities.  Last summer, researchers at the University of Wisconsin Fusion Technology Institute in Madison reported having successfully initiated and maintained a fusion reaction using deuterium and helium-3 fuel.  The most promising idea is to fuel a third-generation reactor solely with helium-3, which can directly yield an electric current--no generator required.

REQUIREMENTS  Robot Miners (HEMMs)  A Lunar Base to extract Helium out of the collected lunar soil.  Helium-3 Storage facility.

HOW IT ALL STARTED ?? Apollo 17's Jack Schmitt, a geologist, is shown during his 1972 mission gauging the off- Earth bounty of resources. Credit: NASA

HELIUM-3  An ideal candidate fuel for nuclear fusion.  Formed in the Sun and carried through space on solar winds, helium-3 is extremely rare on Earth.  Helium 3 is a light, non-radioactive isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron.

ADVANTAGE OF USING HELIUM-3 IN FUSION POWER PLANTS  Substituting helium-3 for tritium in the first generation fusion power plants significantly reduces neutron production, making it safe to locate fusion plants nearer to where power is needed the most, large cities.  Researchers at the University of Wisconsin Fusion Technology Institute in Madison reported having successfully initiated and maintained a fusion reaction using deuterium and helium-3 fuel.  A third-generation reactor solely with helium-3, can directly yield an electric current. As much as 70 percent of the energy in the fuels could be captured and put directly to work.

IMPORTANCE OF RARE EARTH MINERALS

ISSUES ON MOON MINING Low concentrations of Helium-3 in lunar soil :-  Helium-3 concentrations in lunar soil are at least 13 parts per billion (ppb) by weight. Levels may range from 20 to 30 ppb in undisturbed soils.  220 pounds of helium-3 can be found by digging a patch of lunar surface roughly 2.2 km to a depth of about 9 ft.  220 pounds of helium-3 will be enough to power big cities of todays world for at least a year.

ISSUES ON MOON MINING Huge capital investment :-  Recent estimates suggest that about $6 billion in investment capital will be required to develop and construct the first helium-3 fusion power plant  The total estimated cost for fusion development, rocket development and starting lunar operations would be about $15 billion.  For an investment of about $5 billion it should be possible to develop a modernized Saturn capable of delivering 100-ton payloads to the lunar surface for less than $1500 per pound.

ISSUES ON MOON MINING Setting up base at moon for extraction of Helium-3 from lunar soil:-  Perhaps the most daunting challenge to mining the moon is designing the spacecraft to carry the hardware and crew to the lunar surface.  The Apollo Saturn V spacecraft remains the benchmark for a reliable, heavy-lift moon rocket. Capable of lifting 50 tons to the moon, Saturn V's remain the largest spacecraft ever used.  Settlements established for helium-3 mining would branch out into other activities that support space exploration.

ISSUES ON MOON MINING

Problem for commercialization and waste disposal :-  Commercialization – Initially some big organisations and private companies should put in combined efforts to invest in the moon mining project and see its growth for a couple of years. If the results are positive then the resources can be divided equally amongst all nations without providing any sort of Monopoly to any Nation or Private firm.  Waste Disposal – We can look for some nearby asteroids as a waste dumping ground or can dump the waste on moon itself. More over we can keep some samples and test them for radioactivity. If found safe to use then they can be used for back filling operations on earth as well as many other uses might turn up as we study the properties of the waste generated.

OTHER ASPECTS OF MOON MINING There’s not just Helium-3 which attracts us to moon:-  Rare earth elements :- Better knowledge of the availability of rare earth elements on the moon would also be valuable.  It's entirely possible that when we really explore the moon properly we will find higher concentrations of some of these materials that are not resolvable by orbital remote sensing.  The moon might harbour concentrations of rare earth elements such as uranium and thorium, as well as other useful materials that we're not aware of today, in small, geographically restricted areas  To explore the whole moon at the level of detail required, that's a big undertaking

FUTURE PLANS  According to Abbud-Madrid, Director of Centre for Space Resources at Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado – “NASA's Resource Prospector Mission, a concept mission aiming for launch in 2018, would verify the feasibility of lunar resource extraction, as would several other mission concepts from the private sector.”  Chang'e 5 is an unmanned Chinese lunar exploration mission currently under development, which is expected to land on the Moon by It will be China's first sample return mission, aiming to return at least 2 kilograms of lunar soil and rock samples back to the Earth.

CONCLUSION  According to Ian Crawford, a professor of planetary science & astrobiology at BrikBeck College, London – “It's hard to identify any single lunar resource that will be sufficiently valuable to drive a lunar resource extraction industry on its own. The moon does possess abundant raw materials that are of potential economic interest but we need to have proper plans for exploiting the resources.”