India’s quest to find a trillion-dollar nuclear fuel on the Moon

Deccan Chronicle ^ | Jun 30, 2018, 11:43 am IST

[BenLurkin]

The rover landing is one step in an envisioned series for ISRO that includes putting a space station in orbit and, potentially, an Indian crew on the moon. The government has yet to set a timeframe.

The rover landing is one step in an envisioned series for ISRO that includes putting a space station in orbit and, potentially, an Indian crew on the moon. The government has yet to set a timeframe.

“We are ready and waiting,’’ said Sivan, an aeronautics engineer The mission would solidify India’s place among the fleet of explorers racing to the moon, Mars and beyond for scientific, commercial or military gains. The governments of the US, China, India, Japan and Russia are competing with startups and billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson to launch satellites, robotic landers, astronauts and tourists into the cosmos.

The rover landing is one step in an envisioned series for ISRO that includes putting a space station in orbit and, potentially, an Indian crew on the moon. The government has yet to set a timeframe.

“We are ready and waiting,’’ said Sivan, an aeronautics engineer who joined ISRO in 1982. “We’ve equipped ourselves to take on this particular programme.’’

The upcoming launch of Chandrayaan-2 includes an orbiter, lander and a rectangular rover. The six-wheeled vehicle, powered by solar energy, will collect information for at least 14 days and cover an area with a 400-meter radius. The rover will send images to the lander, and the lander will transmit those back to ISRO for analysis.

A primary objective, though, is to search for deposits of helium-3.

[Kickass Conservative]

>>>Going to planets like Uranus, which has plentiful Helium-3 in its atmosphere, has one big problem: The 12-year round-trip time to bring it back<<

I thought Uranus produced Methane.

[Bethaneidh]

It’s ok with me that they run the convenience stores. I mean after all, who else would want to?

[jonrick46]

Uranus has high amounts of Helium-3. This article says that the Helium-3 high speed Helium-3 powered tankers could carry its cargo in 140 days round-trip. Each tanker would bring back a load of 614 tons using about 254 tons of fuel.

https://www.seeker.com/project-icarus-the-gas-mines-of-uranus-discovery-news-1765273832.html

[prophetic]

Eeeeyeeew, and not only do they call and revere the Ganges river as HOLY, it is filled with lots of the same stuff while people relieve themselves in it, bathe in it, wash clothes in it and drink from it; many times within view of each other!

[TXnMA]

Helium 3

[Cronos]

three points:

1. their space program is pretty frugal - it is a fraction of the percentage that NASA spends
2. Space programs improve R&D and help develop a country's scientific prowess
3. Their poverty levels in 1990 was close to 50% - so a reduction to 21% is not too bad for such a huge continent

[TheNext]

A lot of Americans would want convenient stores if they were not slaves to junk banks, so we sell out to foreign ownership.

We should have been tariffing 50 years ago but the public is just so stupid.

[RayChuang88]

I think if India's own test reactor to scale up molten-salt reactor technology actually works, India may be looking for something else: thorium-232. And scientists think there is a LOT of it on the Mooon, which means enough fuel to power human energy needs for tens of thousands of years.

[Wuli]

Hmmmm

How much of the total weight and gravity of the moon is represented by 250,000 tons of material on the moon?

How much will the removal of 250,000 tons of material from the moon change the weight and gravity of the moon.

How much will removing that material even very slightly alter the dynamic gravitational dance in the earth-moon dance.

How much will eaths geologio and climate systems (tides) be affected by that altering.

I think scientists ought to be calculating the answers to those questions before any mining of the moon even ever so slightly alters the earth-moon gravitational dance.

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, good one, helium-3. Sustained controlled fusion reaction remains impossible, but let's rush to the Moon to find some. Thanks BenLurkin.

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Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking by Charles Seife

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[Ozark Tom]

India holds the majority reserves of thorium in the form of Monazite enriched beach sand located on the country’s western coastline.