[FPSPACE] Is Helium 3 Exploitation China's Hidden Lunar Agenda?

[LARRY KLAES]

Is Helium 3 Exploitation China's Hidden Lunar Agenda?

July 02, 2008

Earlier this year, shortly after Russia claimed a vast portion of the Arctic 
sea floor, accelerating an international race for the natural resources as 
global warming opens polar access, China has announced plans to map "every 
inch" of the surface of the Moon and exploit the vast quantities of Helium-3 
thought to lie buried in lunar rocks as part of its ambitious 
space-exploration program.

Ouyang Ziyuan, head of the first phase of lunar exploration, was quoted on 
government-sanctioned news site ChinaNews.com describing plans to collect 
three dimensional images of the Moon for future mining of Helium 3: "There 
are altogether 15 tons of helium-3 on Earth, while on the Moon, the total 
amount of Helium-3 can reach one to five million tons."

"Helium-3 is considered as a long-term, stable, safe, clean and cheap 
material for human beings to get nuclear energy through controllable nuclear 
fusion experiments," Ziyuan added. "If we human beings can finally use such 
energy material to generate electricity, then China might need 10 tons of 
helium-3 every year and in the world, about 100 tons of helium-3 will be 
needed every year."

Full article here:

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/07/is-helium-3-exp.html