Re: DON'T LOSE time and money around the fusion energy illusion and the lunar-helium-3 dream!!!

On Aug 29, 6:46 am, "Paul F. Dietz" <di...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
A: the #1 scientific rule states that all theories MUST be confirmed
by FACTS and REAL tests and measurements... until that REAL tests will
be accoplished (in the new moon missions from 2020) the lunar He3
still remanins just a THEORY
of course, the lunar regolith could have some "traces" of He3 and
other gases, but not "ONE MILLION" tons as claimed

Lunar 3He is a pretty safe extrapolation from the physical evidence returned
by the Apollo missions (and the soviet sample return). The exact quantity
needs to be better bounded, but this is more a matter of determining if
there
is even more at high latitudes (where diffusive escape from regolith grains
might be slowed at lower temperatures).

The big if is economic. Extracting 10 ppb 3He is very speculative. If you
need lunar infrastructure handling a sizeable fraction of the energy flow
you'd
get from the helium, just to extract it, the economics cannot make sense.

Paul

Fairly interesting critique of the lunar 3He "opportunity" from an
Oxford elementary particle physicist.

He writes here about two tabloid issues that he regards as fallacious.
One being that LHC will destroy the world by creating mini-black
holes, and the other that lunar-mined 3He is a useful prospect.

"As a particle physicist, I am of course interested in the LHC; and as
the chair of a working group set up by the British National Space
Centre to look into the future of UK space science - including the
possibility of humans returning to the Moon - I am also intrigued by
the helium-3 story. Both of the claims bother me and, on
investigation, each is revealed as an example of what I call "factoid
science" - myths of dubious provenance that propagate, become received
wisdom and could even influence policy. So what is the reality and
what can physicists do to correct such mis-information?"

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/indepth/30679

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