It’s been nearly 38 years since man last walked on the moon – but it’s recently become a hot destination once again, because several companies are vying to return to Earth’s satellite to mine it. It’s known that the Moon contains huge amounts of water-ice and methane and it is also home to the rare element helium3, which could be used for non-polluting fusion reactors.
US-based Astrobotic Technology is one company that has the Moon in its sights and hopes to send scout and excavating robots to the surface in the very near future. However, the Moon also contains a substance that could be of even greater use to civilisation – one that could revolutionise energy production. It’s called helium3 and has been dumped on the Moon in vast quantities by solar winds. Astrobotic explains that it could power clean fusion plants. It is nonradioactive and very little goes a very long way.
David Gump, president of Astrobotic, is convinced it would be of enormous benefit to civilisation, being cheap and benign. His company has plenty of competition, though. There are 26 companies in the race to reach the Moon altogether, with the Google Lunar X Prize providing a big incentive. Google is offering $30million in prizes “to the first privately funded teams to safely land a robot on the surface of the Moon, have that robot travel 500 meters and send video back to Earth”. MAIL
