Super Fuel
The moon could supply earth with massive amounts of energy, it is
being considered to be the 'Persian Golf' of space."(He-3) is a light, non-radioactive isotope of helium with two
protons and one neutron, which is rare on Earth; it is sought after
for use in nuclear fusion research. More abundant helium-3 is
thought to exist on the Moon (embedded in the upper layer of
regolith by the solar wind over billions of years) and the solar
system's gas giants (left over from the original solar nebula)It is
proposed to be used as a second-generation fusion power source. The
lone high-energy proton produced can be contained using electric and
magnetic fields, which results in direct electricity generation."
-(Wikipedia)
Just a
few ounces of He-3 could power a small city for a day, whereas with
conventional fossil fuels it would take thousands of tons to do the
same. The fusion reactor
using He-3 is the future of high end power generation.
It could be used to reduce space travel time vastly along
with making it more practical at the same time. A facility could be
set up on the moon to not only mine and refine but also to
manufacture the fusion drives themselves. The drives could then be
shipped to a huge station outside earth that oversees all
incoming/outgoing space materials.
This station would also manufacture space ships. The price of
the He-3 would reflect the difficulty to obtain it, but due to its
extreme efficiency it would be well worth it. The income from the
He-3 would more then cover the cost of maintaining the stations,
ships, crews, and equipment. The manufactured fusion reactors would
recover the initial building costs (over time) the station could
also act as a tourist resort, science labs, and all future ship
building. Different companies would pay the station for its uses
such as for its ship yard, tourist resort type things, rental space
and whatever else you can imagine. I'm almost positive that this is
going to happen, and whoever builds the first space industry and the
installations to go along with it, is going to make more money than
any other company in human history up to that point. However the
cost to begin this project would be the most expensive in human
history up to that point. Of course this is a long way off from
where we are now, not something that would happen in our lifetimes,
or is it? Accelerating Returns states that technological progress is
increasing at an exponential rate. "So we won't experience 100 years
of progress in the 21st century -- it will be more like 20,000 years
of progress (at today's rate).
A serious assessment of the history of technology shows that
technological change is exponential. In exponential growth, we find
that a key measurement such as computational power is multiplied by
a constant factor for each unit of time (e.g., doubling every year)
rather than just being added to incrementally." -(Ray Kurzweil) This
means that this type of space stuff will be possible in the next
thirty years, if my understanding of our current technology is
correct. But still, the money this type of project would require is
astronomical, or is it? Accelerating Returns also states that as the
technology progresses the price stays at the same level, or it would
be easier to say that every time a new technology comes out, it will
cost the same as the previous did when it just came out. The price
then, for the earlier technology drops exponentially as newer
technology come online. This
means that the cost of such a large space project would not be a
whole lot more then what it cost to get to the moon the first time.
I also believe that if a profit seeking company was in charge of a
project like this (instead of a government) the costs would be much
lower and things would be done at a much higher rate of efficiency.
I say this because we all know how fat, slow, stupid, and
inefficient governments are. Guaranteed it takes NASA at least %30
more money, time, materials, and headache to complete a task then it
would for a profit seeking corporation to do the same. Knowing all
of this, it would seem to me that the time for true space industry
is not very far away.
For more see the video
Sources-
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/helium3_000630.html
http://www.asi.org/adb/02/09/he3-intro.html
http://science.howstuffworks.com/fusion-reactor1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3#Extraterrestrial_supplies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3