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NEWT’S MOONBASE Could Provide Enough Helium-3 to Power ENTIRE US For Years
Gateway Pundit ^ | January 28,2012 | Jim Hoft

Posted on 01/28/2012 9:07:59 AM PST by Hojczyk

Newt Gingrich told Floridians this week that that under his administration the US would have the first permanent base on the moon. An American moon base could provide America with enough Helium-3 to provide for all of country’s energy needs

Nations and private companies are racing to be the first to scout the moon for Helium 3, a rare gas which could make almost unlimited, clean fusion energy a reality.

Some experts estimate there a millions of tons in lunar soil — and that a single Space-Shuttle load would power the entire United States for a year. Both China and Russia have stated their nations’ interest in helium-3.

A moon base could also provide America with several rare earth elements. Discovery reported:

As Discovery News reports, thanks to a critical shortage last year, the price of the isotope helium-3 has skyrocketed from $150 per liter to $5,000 per liter.

Helium is used for arc welding and leak detection, mostly, although NASA uses it to pressurize space shuttle fuel tanks. Liquid helium cools infrared detectors, nuclear reactors, and the superconducting magnets used in MRI machines, too. The fear is that, at current consumption rates, that underground bunker will be empty within 20 years, leaving the earth almost helium-free by the end of the 21st century. This could be bad for US industry.

It also bodes ill for the prospect of fusion using helium-3, a rare helium isotope that is missing a neutron. Physicists have yet to achieve pure helium-3 fusion, but if they did, we’d have a clean, virtually infinite power source. Or so the theory goes.

And that’s where the moon comes in. The moon’s lunar soil is chock-full of helium reserves, thanks to the solar wind.

(Excerpt) Read more at thegatewaypundit.com ...


TOPICS: Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: fusion; he3; helium3; stringtheory
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To: Doctor 2Brains
One of my favorite quotes is from Herman Melville's White Jacket.

"We are the pioneers of the world; the advance guard sent on through the wilderness of untried things..."

In the book he is speaking about what it is we are as Americans and what it means to be an American.

This was written over 150 years ago and is still true to this day. As Americans, it is in our very blood to explore the unknown, to push the envelope and never settle for what we have, instead to strive for what could be.

To cut away from our drive to explore(even if it is for financial reasons) is the most un-American thing I can think of. It's who we are and what truly makes us special in this world. It's why every one of our ancestors pulled up their roots from wherever they came from and bet everything on this Country.

Space is the frontier now and to explore it is who we are, and who we have always been.

21 posted on 01/28/2012 10:11:58 AM PST by MarketR
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To: Hojczyk

bttt


22 posted on 01/28/2012 10:16:48 AM PST by Matchett-PI ("One party will generally represent the envied, the other the envious. Guess which ones." ~GagdadBob)
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To: cripplecreek
I have no problem funding Nasa if they are doing engineering to exploit space like replacing the space shuttle; Muslim outreach, that's for social services not Nasa.

I'm still angry that they killed the shuttle without a replacement. Yes it was dangerous but I and probably every astronaut would ride it into space regardless. There are risks to everything we do. This thinking that everything should be risk free is ridiculous. A great goal, no doubt, but it shouldn't stop all activity. When Alan Shepard sat in the first Mercury capsule waiting for launch, he knew how dangerous it was and how many failures there were but he did it anyway. I didn't know he died from leukemia in 1998 according to wiki.

Do they even have swing-sets on playgrounds these days or are they deemed too dangerous?

I would have been a lot more impressed if Gingrich had promised to get us out of the outer space treaty and give industry the go ahead to claim tracts of land and asteroids in space if they can put feet on them and utilize them.

I agree. With our current plans and administration, we'll be the last to get there and probably riding on a Russian or Chinese launch vehicle.

23 posted on 01/28/2012 10:17:54 AM PST by Lx (Do you like it, do you like it. Scott? I call it Mr. and Mrs. Tennerman chili.)
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To: Hojczyk
It also bodes ill for the prospect of fusion using helium-3, a rare helium isotope that is missing a neutron. Physicists have yet to achieve pure helium-3 fusion, but if they did, we’d have a clean, virtually infinite power source. Or so the theory goes.

This is going to be portrayed as right wing wackiness. Sort of their version of the Bullet Train and Windmill agenda.

It's hard enough to figure if cold fusion is viable.

Get a laboratory version using H-3 fusion working, scale it; then it will be good to consider moon mining. Then, private money would at least partly pay.

24 posted on 01/28/2012 10:24:17 AM PST by cicero2k
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To: taildragger
Velcro wasn't a benefit of the space program. I always thought it was until I saw a show, I think it was an episode of Modern Marvels and they were showing what the space program spin offs were and they had a test before going to commercial on which products were from the space program and Velcro was on the list. When they came back from commercial, it said that it wasn't.

From Wiki:

Velcro is the brand name of the first commercially marketed fabric hook-and-loop fastener,[1] invented in 1948 by the Swiss electrical engineer George de Mestral. De Mestral patented Velcro in 1955, subsequently refining and developing its practical manufacture until its commercial introduction in the late 1950s.

I could have sworn it was a benefit from the space program but it's not, weird, eh???

25 posted on 01/28/2012 10:24:32 AM PST by Lx (Do you like it, do you like it. Scott? I call it Mr. and Mrs. Tennerman chili.)
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To: Lx

My grandfather had lots of business dealings with Jim McDivitt (Gemini 4 and Apollo 9). I know he was a big supporter of industrializing space as a means of expansion.

There were always kids around at the informal business lunches and men’s breakfast at the church and he always told us that we might work in space some day.


26 posted on 01/28/2012 10:28:14 AM PST by cripplecreek (What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?)
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To: Lx
If we are to move forward at all, we need a long range goal. Frankly we have reached the point where technology has rendered manned orbital activities unnecessary. They even are talking about the International Space Station coming down in five years or so--I guess nobody really needs it anymore. A permanent station on the moon is the more-than-obvious next step. I doubt the timeline of 8 years but so what--it's the idea that counts.
27 posted on 01/28/2012 10:36:05 AM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: cripplecreek
My grandfather had lots of business dealings with Jim McDivitt (Gemini 4 and Apollo 9). I know he was a big supporter of industrializing space as a means of expansion.

There were always kids around at the informal business lunches and men’s breakfast at the church and he always told us that we might work in space some day.

How cool is that?

I remember those days when the future was wide open, what happened to that, guilty liberals?

28 posted on 01/28/2012 10:36:53 AM PST by Lx (Do you like it, do you like it. Scott? I call it Mr. and Mrs. Tennerman chili.)
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To: hinckley buzzard
They even are talking about the International Space Station coming down in five years or so...

What's a couple of billions here and there matter? What a waste; are we going to let the orbit decay like Skylab and Mir? The fact that we have to hitch a ride on a Russian rocket is pathetic.

Now that we've spent so much money, keep it up there until it literally falls apart. It's modular and they've proven they can work in space so what's the problem? I think the idea was floated from the Russians simply so that we'd have to give them more money.

29 posted on 01/28/2012 10:42:19 AM PST by Lx (Do you like it, do you like it. Scott? I call it Mr. and Mrs. Tennerman chili.)
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To: Lx

I think McDivitt is where I learned that even a failure is a success if you learn from it. They failed in one objective of Gemini 4 to attempt the first space rendezvous with the second stage of the rocket that launched them.

However they did do some other things that saved lives later on like the first attempt at using a sextant for navigation in space. Ed White made the first space walk on that flight too.


30 posted on 01/28/2012 10:54:21 AM PST by cripplecreek (What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?)
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To: Hojczyk

Somebody going to tell me where we’ve got all the fusion reactors we’re going to fuel with this stuff?

Seriously, researchers have been playing with tokamaks and the like for decades, and as best I recall, we haven’t even been able to sustain a fusion reaction for a whole second.


31 posted on 01/28/2012 11:19:03 AM PST by Stosh
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To: Lx
"So in other words, helium 3 fusion is twenty years in the future…"
The predictability and grasp of our future is in logarithmic proportion to our willingness to shun the norm,
…unfettered by reward or acknowledgement, without fear of either embarrassment or denigration.
What was unthinkable only a decade ago is so common a thing today as to be held with total regarded as unimportant.
Don't sell the American entrepreneur short… or sumpin' like dat.
32 posted on 01/28/2012 11:19:03 AM PST by bksanders (I think I just had my backslashed on a carriage return)
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To: Hojczyk
Newt Gingrich alone could provide enough hot air to power a 300MW power station.

Newt Gingrich: Gasbag

33 posted on 01/28/2012 11:20:38 AM PST by OldCorps
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To: Hojczyk

We should be in a position to land on the moon at a moments notice.

#ck the entitlement crowd that makes such novel operations a financial impossibility.


34 posted on 01/28/2012 11:22:19 AM PST by Gene Eric (C'mon, Virginia -- are you with us or against us?!)
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To: OldCorps

>> gasbag

Then what do you propose we do regarding POTUS 2012?


35 posted on 01/28/2012 11:24:36 AM PST by Gene Eric (C'mon, Virginia -- are you with us or against us?!)
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To: Hojczyk; All
Newt Discusses the Facts and Florida With Greta
Newt speaks about this topic in this interview.
36 posted on 01/28/2012 11:27:48 AM PST by RedMDer (Forward With Confidence!)
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Don't let FR fade away! Donate.
For every New Monthly Donor, another FReeper is donating $10.00!!
Please take this generous offer into consideration!

37 posted on 01/28/2012 11:29:03 AM PST by RedMDer (Forward With Confidence!)
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To: Lx

It’s my understanding that the idea for Velcro came from a type of weed seed that sticks to clothing or fur.


38 posted on 01/28/2012 11:29:18 AM PST by Western Phil
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To: Hojczyk

newt’s behind the curve on nuclear energy. the real deal is thorium. There’s immense quantities of thorium here in the USA and elsewhere on earth. There’s also plenty on the moon and mars.

what’s more there have already been experimental reactors developed to use it. thorium reactors were jewels in the crown of the US nuclear program during its heyday from the 40’ to the early 70’s. a democrat even briefly ran for office on the sole plank of pushing thorium energy. because is cheap and safe and easy to make (compared to uranium).


39 posted on 01/28/2012 11:56:51 AM PST by ckilmer
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To: Gene Eric
Then what do you propose we do regarding POTUS 2012?

I propose the Republican party nominate anyone who is non establishment Republican: Santorum, Palin, General Petreus, any army officer, or other professional person who is not a liaryar for that matter. I'm sick of beltway types who have been ensconced in D.C. since forever.

Military officers have a wide range of experience and bring a lot to the table.

Just my two cents since you asked.

Fregards,

OC

40 posted on 01/28/2012 12:45:33 PM PST by OldCorps
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