Helium-3 crisis today could finance lunar elevator

Helium-3 is abundant on the Moon but very rare on Earth

There is a critical shortage of He3 today, due to two factors:

1) increasing demand for neutrons detectors since 2001 for cargo screening at airport and seaports. There is also increasing demand at research facilities.

2) reduced supply due to decommissioning of nuclear warheads in USA and Russia

Reference:

The Helium-3 Shortage: Supply, Demand, and Options for Congress
Dana A. Shea - Specialist in Science and Technology Policy
Daniel Morgan - Specialist in Science and Technology Policy
December 22, 2010
Congressional Research Service 7-5700
www.crs.gov R41419

He-3 is currently selling at DOE auctions for $2000 per litre. Sales of He3 in 2008 were 80,000 liters. There is reason to think that the market could absorb 100,000 liters per year of He3, which would put potential revenues at $200 million per year. As of 2012 DOE is currently releasing 14,000 liters per year, and producing only 8,000 liters per year.

Alternative terrestrial sources are scarce and non-viable. For example, extracxting He3 from natural gas would cost $12,000 per liter.

If this were the only revenue source for a lunar elevator it would be ample to service the debt on $800 million to build it. Payback in just a few years

The commercial amount of He3 needed would be 10,000 liters per year to 100,000 liters per year. He3 density is about 0.1g per liter at NTP, so we need about 1kg to 10 kg of the gas per year. At average concentration about 150,000 tons of regolith per year would need to be processed. About 500 tons per day, 22 tones per hour

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Ne...-detectors.asp

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About lunar elevators:

For a one time capital cost of US$800Million 2012, a lunar elevator can be built today using existing available materials. This first generation lunar elevator will softly deliver an infinite number of payloads to the lunar surface, each weighing 100 kg, and retrieve the same amount of material from the lunar surface. The alternative of using chemical rockets to soft land on the Moon is prohibitively expensive.

The first generation lunar elevator kit weighs 11,000 kg and can be delivered today to the Lunar L1 lagrange libration location, using a single Delta-IV (or Ariane-V) launch. From there the tether is unreeled upwards and downwards. The lower end anchors itself into the lunar soil using robotic penetrators.

The lunar elevator will cheaply transport oxygen from the Moon to Low Earth Orbit where it can refuel tugs to take satellites from LEO to GEO, a significant revenue source. This reduces the cost of launches to GEO by a factor of Eight times.

In the 1980's I was also a big fan of mass drivers for lunar development and met Gerard O'Neill 3 times (RIP).

In the last couple of years it has become apparent to me that a lunar elevator is orders of magnitude cheaper than electromagnetic mass drivers, and offers several additional capabilities which EM mass drivers do not. For example, lunar elevator can soft land payloads on to the lunar surface, an EM mass driver cannot. This is a game changing cost saving capability.

We can continue the process of developing lunar elevators very inexpensively, by building on existing technology demonstration for space tethers.

A recent data point:is the ESA YES2 mission which flew in 2007 ... they deployed a 31.7 km Dyneema tether, the mission cost under 3 million Euros, including student labor ... estimate Eu15 million at commercial prices..... a lunar elevator deployer is the same technology, would need to be scaled up somewhat ... the system design and complexity would be much the same as YES2.

The YES2 leader is confident that a 100 km tether can be deployed using existing spare hardware, at similar (perhaps lower) cost, in about a year.

Liftport estimate $800 million for the first lunar elevator prototype. The cost of the Zylon tether material is $20 million, the rest is deployment and control systems.

Liftport welcome more detailed analysis on the cost ... without funding our analysis has been limited. Liftport suggested to NIAC a study but they declined.

Prior to establishing ISRU technology, a lunar elevator can provide rapid pay back in terms of scientific exploration of the lunar surface more cheaply than chemical rockets.

We are happy to address any comments or questions you might have, within our limited resources.