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it was a time of wonder and discovery

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six trips together in the circus reveal

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much about our cases celestial neighbor

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and changed forever the way we view our

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own planet today NASA is looking towards

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returning to the moon a permanent lunar

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base would complement Space Station

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freedom and provide a springboard for

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manned missions to Mars and if

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researchers at NASA's Center for the

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commercial development of space in

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Wisconsin are successful the first lunar

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settlers will also be miners actually

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this large automated vehicle would do

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most of the work processing the moon's

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rocks and soil to remove a potentially

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valuable product helium-3 just 25 metric

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chance of this rare isotope roughly the

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capacity of the shuttle cargo bay could

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provide enough energy to generate all

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the electricity used in this country in

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an entire meal helium-3 is produced by

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fusion reactions in the Sun and carried

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through space by the solar wind birds

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atmosphere shields us from the solar

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wind but it has been depositing helium-3

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on the moon for more than a billion

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years former senator Jack Schmitt his

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part of the Apollo 17 mission rich

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marked our last or as he likes to say

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our most recent journey to the lunar

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surface we can't always use fossil fuels

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for the production of electricity there

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are many environmental reasons why you

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don't want to do that one of the most

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popular now of course is the addition of

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co2 to the atmosphere we don't need to

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panic but we ought to be making those

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kinds of research and development plans

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that we have an alternative to coal and

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other fossil fuels in the

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not-too-distant future studies indicate

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that the amount of radioactivity and a

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device like this generating energy from

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helium 3 will be one millionth less than

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in nuclear systems used today and no

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greenhouse gases acid rain or solid

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wastes will result the proposed mining

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system will be equally kind to the lunar

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environment once helium-3

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the untainted wants

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return to the surface leaving it

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essentially under the process should

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also produce a number of byproducts

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including water which will be a great

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value to a lunar colony and according to

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jerry Kucinski a professor at the

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university of wisconsin and member of

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the nasa commercial development e-way

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current oil prices makes helium-3 an

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even more attractive alternative at

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today's prices helium-3 would be worth

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four billion dollars a ton who should

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make a shuttle load worth about a

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hundred billion dollars and that's

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enough I think for any businessman to

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figure out a way to make a profit

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helium-3 mining using the moon's