How much Helium-3 is on the Moon?
To extract one ton of helium-3, it is estimated that 200 million tons of lunar soil would have to be processed [in helium-3 rich regions of the Moon]. That is equivalent to mining the top 2 meters of a region 10 kilometers square.
Sounds like a lot of work for a little helium-3.
www.blog.speculist.com...
It is not a lack of engineering skill that prevents us from using helium-3 to meet our energy needs, but a lack of the isotope itself. Vast quantities of helium originate in the sun, a small part of which is helium-3, rather than the more common helium-4. Both types of helium are transformed as they travel toward Earth as part of the solar wind. The precious isotope never arrives because Earth's magnetic field pushes it away. Fortunately, the conditions that make helium-3 rare on Earth are absent on the moon, where it has accumulated on the surface and been mixed with the debris layer of dust and rock, or regolith, by constant meteor strikes. And there it waits for the taking.
www.popularmechanics.com...
Samples collected in 1969 by Neil Armstrong during the first lunar landing showed that helium-3 concentrations in lunar soil are at least 13 parts per billion (ppb) by weight. Levels may range from 20 to 30 ppb in undisturbed soils. Quantities as small as 20 ppb may seem too trivial to consider. But at a projected value of $40,000 per ounce, 220 pounds of helium-3 would be worth about $141 million.
Because the concentration of helium- 3 is extremely low, it would be necessary to process large amounts of rock and soil to isolate the material. Digging a patch of lunar surface roughly three-quarters of a square mile to a depth of about 9 ft. should yield about 220 pounds of helium-3÷ enough to power a city the size of Dallas or Detroit for a year.
Although considerable lunar soil would have to be processed, the mining costs would not be high by terrestrial standards. Automated machines, perhaps like those shown in Figure 1, might perform the work. Extracting the isotope would not be particularly difficult. Heating and agitation release gases trapped in the soil. As the vapors are cooled to absolute zero, the various gases present sequentially separate out of the mix. In the final step, special membranes would separate helium-3 from ordinary helium.
www.searchanddiscovery.net...
Originally posted by niteboy82
Hey Semper. I sent the letter to Buzz, and I am putting together my letters to send to some others
# Major Gordon Cooper
# Ed White & James McDivitt
# James Lovell and Frank Borman
# Neil Armstrong & Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin
# Donald Slayton
# Major Robert White
# NASA Pilot Joseph A. Walker
# Commander Eugene Cernan
# NASA's Maurice Chatelain
# NASA Pilot Walter Schirra
# NASA Pilot James Lovell
# NASA's Scott Carpenter
# Pete Conrad an Richard Gordon
According to the NASA Astronaut Neil Armstrong the Aliens have a base on the Moon and told us in no uncertain terms to get off and stay off the Moon.
According to hitherto un-confirmed reports, both Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin saw UFOs shortly after that historic landing on the Moon in Apollo 11 on 21 July 1969. I remember hearing one of the astronauts refer to a "light" in or on a crater during the television transmission, followed by a request from mission control for further information. Nothing more was heard.
Originally posted by anxietydisorder
# Major Gordon Cooper
# Ed White & James McDivitt
# James Lovell and Frank Borman
# Neil Armstrong & Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin
# Donald Slayton
# Major Robert White
# NASA Pilot Joseph A. Walker
# Commander Eugene Cernan
# NASA's Maurice Chatelain
# NASA Pilot Walter Schirra
# NASA Pilot James Lovell
# NASA's Scott Carpenter
# Pete Conrad an Richard Gordon
www.anomalous-images.com...
The orbit of the Moon is very nearly circular (eccentricity ~ 0.05) with a mean separation from the Earth of about 384,000 km, which is about 60 Earth radii. The plane of the orbit is tilted about 5 degrees with respect to the ecliptic plane.
Revolution in Orbit
The Moon appears to move completely around the celestial sphere once in about 27.3 days as observed from the Earth. This is called a sidereal month, and reflects the corresponding orbital period of 27.3 days The moon takes 29.5 days to return to the same point on the celestial sphere as referenced to the Sun because of the motion of the Earth around the Sun; this is called a synodic month (Lunar phases as observed from the Earth are correlated with the synodic month). There are effects that cause small fluctuations around this value that we will not discuss. Since the Moon must move Eastward among the constellations enough to go completely around the sky (360 degrees) in 27.3 days, it must move Eastward by 13.2 degrees each day (in contrast, remember that the Sun only appears to move Eastward by about 1 degree per day). Thus, with respect to the background constellations the Moon will be about 13.2 degrees further East each day. Since the celestial sphere appears to turn 1 degree about every 4 minutes, the Moon crosses our celestial meridian about 13.2 x 4 = 52.8 minutes later each day.
Lunar Phases
The Moon appears to go through a complete set of phases as viewed from the Earth because of its motion around the Earth, as illustrated in the following figure.
The largest separation between the Earth and Moon on its orbit is called apogee and the smallest separation is called perigee. Here is an online Lunar Perigee and Apogee Calculator that will allow you to determine the date, time, and distance of lunar perigees and apogees for a given year (Credit: John Walker).
"The Moon's orbit around the Earth is elliptical, with a substantial eccentricity (as major Solar System bodies go) of 5.49%. In addition, the tidal effect of the Sun's gravitational field increases the eccentricity when the orbit's major axis is aligned with the Sun-Earth vector or, in other words, the Moon is full or new."
www.fourmilab.ch...
csep10.phys.utk.edu...
