Seasons greetings,

I posted some ideas on lunarpedia about Existing Commercial Potential
for Helium-3 from Luna.

The Moon is an abundant source of He3. He3 has a market value, even
though He3 fusion is not yet demonstrated. It might be worth
collecting He3 from the Moon today simply to sell into the existing
terrestrial market.

Current market price for He3 is about $46,500 per troy ounce
($1500/gram, $1.5M/kg), more than 120 times the value of gold and
over eight times the value of Rhodium.

Question: can we reduce the cost of recovering He3 from the lunar
surface to that level, e.g. $1500 per gram? What would be the capital
cost of setting up a small He3 production facility on Luna?

See this web link for more detailed discussion.

http://www.lunarpedia.org/index.php?title=Helium3

Best regards,

Charles F. Radley

My Yahoo Inst Msgr ID = CFRJLR
My AOL Inst Msgr ID = CFRJLR
My Skype ID = CFRJLR

>
>Seasons greetings,
>
>I posted some ideas on lunarpedia about Existing Commercial Potential
>for Helium-3 from Luna.
>
>The Moon is an abundant source of He3. He3 has a market value, even
>though He3 fusion is not yet demonstrated. It might be worth
>collecting He3 from the Moon today simply to sell into the existing
>terrestrial market.
>
>Current market price for He3 is about $46,500 per troy ounce
>($1500/gram, $1.5M/kg), more than 120 times the value of gold and
>over eight times the value of Rhodium.
>
>Question: can we reduce the cost of recovering He3 from the lunar
>surface to that level, e.g. $1500 per gram? What would be the capital
>cost of setting up a small He3 production facility on Luna?

Hi Charles,

I would expand your question a bit?
Wouldn't it be a lot more economical to get this material from a Near
Earth Asteroid located at about 0.25 AU from Earth?

The Moon has a gravitation well and this costs money to get materials
on and off. We will need heavier and stronger crafts to mine there as
we would need doing the same on an asteroid.

Doing the same with robotic crafts would save costs and masses needed
to support human life.

The best of all we could do that now, not having to wait on
developments in human life support.
Betting on the Moon card only would cost humanity not only money but
time also, years of development were nothing other is done.

I would start to set out to the asteroids first and getting back to
the Moon later when we are able to support Moon operations with
materials and technology (especially in space construction and
fabrication as well as tele-operation) gained at the asteroids.

Choosing an Asteroid as close to the Sun as possible would reduce
equipment size needed to generate energy from solar panels remarkable.
Solar concentrators for melting processes would be extremely capable
at 0.25 AU (16 times of that delivered at Earth level) as the energy
supply delivered from our Sun.

The same would apply to the energy levels available for solar cell
arrays and for the solar radiation pressure available to drive solar
sail spacecraft.

He3 comes from the solar wind which is 16 times stronger as well at
0.25 AU, so we could expect 16 times more he3 on such a NEA as on the
Moon.

Putting this 4 factors together, would reduce the capital needed for
space mining without in situ human involvement, at least 4 factors of
magnitude compared to a Moon operation with humans on the Moon
or at least 3 factors of magnitude when the mining operation on the
Moon would be robotic or tele-operated.

What would happen If two companies would start out developing space
mining, one developing choosing a moon operation and the other an
asteroid operation?

The Asteroid Mining Company (AMC) could even though it would take a
bit longer to get to the asteroid return the first ore delivery faster
than the Moon Mining Company (MMC).
Those asteroid ores could be mined more than 3 orders of magnitude
cheaper than the Moon ores.

If I would operate the MMC, I would close it down since my product
would be not competitive at all.

Citation of the article you quoted:
>Today, the world's supply of Helium-3 can probably be counted in hundreds of kilograms, value of 100 kg would be $150M. So the total stockpile value today is probably about half a billion USD.
>
>The US DOE does sell He3 commercially, but how much of the present stockpile has actually been sold on the open market? Not sure if that number is publicly available.
>
>But for arguments sake let us start at the level of collecting 100kg of He3 from the Moon and assume its value would be $150M.

A small ion driven probe which would be able to get one ton of ore
from an asteroid back to Earth orbit could generate 1.5 billion of
value in one single operation.

It could return to the next mining operation also.

Getting and transporting one ton of ore with small equipment seems
feasible.

My proposal for such a craft would be a system solar sail shown at
http://solar-thruster-sailor.info/figs/fig19-21d.html
which uses ion propulsion to reach the target and could carry one or
two prospector landers along with communication and observation
satellites which support the tele-operation.

The craft carries ample solar cell arrays to enable SEP-propulsion and
has also a large docking station where the daughter units are carried.
The solar sails serve rather for station keeping and attitude control
near the asteroid and (having 16 times the solar radiation pressure
available) for acceleration when returning from the asteroid to Earth
orbit.

The daughter units could dock out at the asteroid were the observation
and communications remain while the prospector landers dock back into
the carrier ship for return to Earth orbit.

As the sailcraft can reef the sail foils again, it is also able to
deliver the ore to the ISS.

Regards

Frank

> Current market price for He3 is about $46,500 per troy ounce
> ($1500/gram, $1.5M/kg), more than 120 times the value of gold and
> over eight times the value of Rhodium.

Yes, but the demand for it is extremely small. It has no uses apart
from a handful of research labs, as far as I know. Its price is so
high only because the supply is currently extremely limited. So you
have to wonder how much He3 the market could absorb before the demand
would be used up, and the price would drop to a tiny fraction of the
current price.

> Question: can we reduce the cost of recovering He3 from the lunar
> surface to that level, e.g. $1500 per gram? What would be the capital
> cost of setting up a small He3 production facility on Luna?

I would guess that any scale of operations that involved setting up
even a small production facility would saturate the market and kill its
own source of revenue. If there's any way to make money of He3, I'd
think it would need to be a small probe that returns a small quantity
of He3, for a low mission cost.

Best,
- Joe

Joe Strout -- joe@...

> Wouldn't it be a lot more economical to get this material from a
Near
> Earth Asteroid located at about 0.25 AU from Earth?
>

My understanding about He3 is that it is imbedded in the deep lunar
regolith. Which it(the regolith) was created after of billions of
years of micro meteor impacts and also it retains it due to its
gravity.

Most asteroids have such weak gravitational fields that they would
not be able to retain such a regolith and would not be a good source
for He3, the only other source that I have heard of for He3, was the
atmosphere of Gas Giants, I think I read about the idea of mining
Uranus atmosphere by Dr John S Lewis, in one of his books, "Mining
the Sky?", maybe not that one, but one of his other books.

Just my $0.02

There is only one (maybe 2) basic core reasons for humans to go
beyond LEO, That is for the establishment of space settlements or a
space based civilization. Everything else are details.

Gary Gray 11/9/2005

Why all this focus on Lunar helium-3? Why not a renewed discussion
of Solar Power Satellites or Lunar Based Solar Power Stations?

The problem I think is there may just be too many projects crying out
for our attention.

Alex

>
> > Wouldn't it be a lot more economical to get this material from a
> Near
> > Earth Asteroid located at about 0.25 AU from Earth?
> >
> My understanding about He3 is that it is imbedded in the deep lunar
> regolith. Which it(the regolith) was created after of billions of
> years of micro meteor impacts and also it retains it due to its
> gravity.
>
> Most asteroids have such weak gravitational fields that they would
> not be able to retain such a regolith and would not be a good
source
> for He3, the only other source that I have heard of for He3, was
the

>
> Wouldn't it be a lot more economical to get this material from a
Near
> Earth Asteroid located at about 0.25 AU from Earth?
>

Possibly. But there are pros and cons to each approach.

> The Moon has a gravitation well and this costs money to get
materials
> on and off. We will need heavier and stronger crafts to mine there
as
> we would need doing the same on an asteroid.
>

Possibly. but a couple things to keep in mind. Round trip mission
to NEO asteroids take a couple of years, and require long distance
communciations and hihg rleiability hardware. Luanr spacecraft can
be built cheaper using skunworks type technology as they can easily
be repaired and do not need to perate for years without maintenance.

That makes a huge difference to the cost of the hardware

> Doing the same with robotic crafts would save costs and masses
needed
> to support human life.
>

I envisage robotic lunar processing plant for He3, no difference
there.

>
> I would start to set out to the asteroids first and getting back to
> the Moon later when we are able to support Moon operations with
> materials and technology (especially in space construction and
> fabrication as well as tele-operation) gained at the asteroids.
>

I would do the opposite. Luanrm ission can be launched quickly,
asteroids missions take years to accomplish, there are severe launch
windows liitations for asteroids..

> Choosing an Asteroid as close to the Sun as possible would reduce
> equipment size needed to generate energy from solar panels
remarkable.

Yes, if you can find one. Are there any asteroid candidates you
have in mind? Keep in mind that the large delta vee needed to reach
a near-sol orbit is higher than the delta-vee needed to land on the
Moon.

>
> He3 comes from the solar wind which is 16 times stronger as well at
> 0.25 AU, so we could expect 16 times more he3 on such a NEA as on
the
> Moon.
>

Yes, near-sun asteroid are attractive, but too difficult for a first
step.

> Putting this 4 factors together, would reduce the capital needed for
> space mining without in situ human involvement, at least 4 factors
of
> magnitude compared to a Moon operation with humans on the Moon
> or at least 3 factors of magnitude when the mining operation on the
> Moon would be robotic or tele-operated.
>

No that is not correct.

Take a look at the delta-vee needed to get to 0.25 AU, and compare it
with the delta-vee to land on the Moon.

--- In ssi_list@... "Alex Michael Bonnici"
>
> Why all this focus on Lunar helium-3? Why not a renewed discussion
> of Solar Power Satellites or Lunar Based Solar Power Stations?
>
> The problem I think is there may just be too many projects crying out
> for our attention.
>
> Alex
>

Alex, I am a strong supporter of SPS.

But small quantities of He-3 can be returned to Earth much more cheaply
than bullding SPS.

I am not proposing He3 for energy, but simply to sell it into the
existing markets, which are quite strong, and command a price of $1,500
per gram.

>
> > Current market price for He3 is about $46,500 per troy ounce
> > ($1500/gram, $1.5M/kg), more than 120 times the value of gold and
> > over eight times the value of Rhodium.
>
> Yes, but the demand for it is extremely small. It has no uses apart
> from a handful of research labs, as far as I know. Its price is so

Incorrect.

Terrestrial demand for He3 is very strong.

He3 is an unusual material with interesting an unique properties.

For example, a recent invention has been experimental medical lung
imaging using MRI with He3 infused into the lung passages.

Scientists are only recently beginning to understand the properties
of this very special gas. The more it is studied, the stranger it
becomes.

> high only because the supply is currently extremely limited. So you
> have to wonder how much He3 the market could absorb before the
demand
> would be used up, and the price would drop to a tiny fraction of the
> current price.

A fair question.

But instead of arm waving with words like "tiny", how about
contributing some numbers?

I estimate that 100kg of He3 could be imported from Luna without
depressing the price by much (say a few per cent). The global
supply of He3 today is classified, but estimated to be a few hundred
kilograms.

100 kg would be worth $150 Million at current prices. Is there
business potential here?
>
> I would guess that any scale of operations that involved setting up
> even a small production facility would saturate the market and kill
its

You guess wrong I would wager. Take a look at the numbers.

I propose we start with collecting 100kg, and see how the market
responds.

What would be the capital cost of setting up a such a facility on the
Moon?

Right now it seems unlikely that a facility capapble of extracting
100kg could be build for less than $150Million.

But there might be opportunities for creativity.

> own source of revenue. If there's any way to make money of He3, I'd
> think it would need to be a small probe that returns a small
quantity
> of He3, for a low mission cost.
>

Please quantify what you mean by "small", and "low" mission cost.

$150M (for 100kg) is enough money that it is worth looking at some
more and giving ti some real thought and analysis.

> --- In ssi_list@... Frank
> >
> > On Mon, 25 Dec 2006 14:49:06 -0000, Charles F.
> >
> > Wouldn't it be a lot more economical to get this
> material from a
> Near
> > Earth Asteroid located at about 0.25 AU from
> Earth?
> >

Apologies, I can't keep track of who wrote what now.

To my knowledge, there has not yet been an asteroid
discovered whose entire orbit is within the orbit of
Mercury.

There are however several near-earth asteroids for
which the delta vee is less than that of the moon.

Ed

>
> > --- In ssi_list@... Frank
> > >
> > > >
> > > Wouldn't it be a lot more economical to get this
> > material from a
> > Near
> > > Earth Asteroid located at about 0.25 AU from
> > Earth?
> > >
> Apologies, I can't keep track of who wrote what now.
>
> To my knowledge, there has not yet been an asteroid
> discovered whose entire orbit is within the orbit of
> Mercury.
>
> There are however several near-earth asteroids for
> which the delta vee is less than that of the moon.
>
> Ed
>

Ed you are correct. You were quoting Frank BTW.

Frank did not mention NEO asteroids. The delta-vee to NEO can be
less than landing on the Moon.

But there are other logisticial problems with NEOs, e.g. the multi-
year round-trip mission time, lack of launch windows, and long
communications path. All those tend to increase the cost of NEO
missions.

Each NEO only approaches Earth once every few years, so once you have
sent a probe there, it will be years before you get anything back
from it.

Lunar missions can be done at short ntoice, and can be short duration.
Furthermore, it is easy to resupply the Moon and send spare parts to
repair equipment. On asteroid missions, it is so far away from
Earth for most of the time (years) that the hardware has to be very
reliable and expensive. Once you have a hardware failure on an
asteroid you are dead. Period.

> But instead of arm waving with words like "tiny", how about
> contributing some numbers?

I don't have any, but do you? If you do, please share your references,
because I agree it's an interesting possibility. I think we also agree
that putting some hard numbers to it would be the best way to support
or refute the idea. Unfortunately, those hard numbers may be difficult
to find. Such tiny (sorry, it's the appropriate word) markets tend to
be both inefficient and poorly documented.

> I propose we start with collecting 100kg, and see how the market
> responds.

Heh. :) Who's the "we" that can fund an expedition to mine and return
100 kg of He3? The last private lunar venture I saw make a serious
effort was LunaCorp (http://www.lunacorp.com/), which had a far less
ambitious goal of putting some ROVs on the Moon. They limped along for
almost 15 years before finally giving up in 2003. I thought theirs was
a great business plan, but they just couldn't get the financing they
need.

For a He3 mining expedition, which would cost hundreds of millions at
the least, you'd need an even stronger case to get financing. You
can't gather 100kg of *anything* from the Moon as a pilot project --
that's a serious investment, and has to have a better risk/reward ratio
than anything else the investors might put their millions into.

> What would be the capital cost of setting up a such a facility on the
> Moon?
>
> Right now it seems unlikely that a facility capapble of extracting
> 100kg could be build for less than $150Million.

I assume you're only talking here about setting it up once it's already
on the Moon -- not counting transportation costs? If so, then that
might be reasonable.

> > own source of revenue. If there's any way to make money of He3, I'd
> > think it would need to be a small probe that returns a small
> quantity
> > of He3, for a low mission cost.
>
> Please quantify what you mean by "small", and "low" mission cost.

Small: maybe a kg or so. Low: Under a few hundred million dollars. Of
course I realize that these numbers don't work out, profit-wise, but
this is where that creativity you mention would have to come in.

> $150M (for 100kg) is enough money that it is worth looking at some
> more and giving ti some real thought and analysis.

That seems like a ridiculously low cost to me, if you're including
launch costs. Please explain how you arrived at that figure.

Best,
- Joe

Joe Strout -- joe@...

>
> > $150M (for 100kg) is enough money that it is worth looking at
some
> > more and giving ti some real thought and analysis.
>
> That seems like a ridiculously low cost to me, if you're including
> launch costs. Please explain how you arrived at that figure.
>

Yes it is rather low by space standards today.

It is simply the current market price for 100 kg of He3.

It is about the same cost as a Proton launch.

Let us say we use a Zenith instead (e.g. via Sea Launch LLC), about
half the price, and half the payload of a Proton.

Could that land enough of a payload to start producing a few kg per
year of He3?

And what would be the cost of developing such a processing facility?

>
> > Wouldn't it be a lot more economical to get this material from a
> Near
> > Earth Asteroid located at about 0.25 AU from Earth?
> >
> My understanding about He3 is that it is imbedded in the deep lunar
> regolith. Which it(the regolith) was created after of billions of
> years of micro meteor impacts and also it retains it due to its
> gravity.
I did not know, that gravity is a determining factor when it comes to
enrichment of he3.
If that is the case you have successfully wrecked my reasoning :-) .

My reasoning was based on the idea that he3 is blown out from the Sun
and part of the Sun
wind are the he3-particles. The shorter the distance to Sun, the more
particles would impact.
On the other hand, if those particles merge with other particles might
enrichment happen on
asteroids also? At least those merging particles are already held with
the asteroids weak gravity.

>>

>> I would start to set out to the asteroids first and getting back to

>> the Moon later when we are able to support Moon operations with

>>> materials and technology (especially in space construction and

>>fabrication as well as tele-operation) gained at the asteroids.

>

>I would do the opposite. Luanrm ission can be launched quickly,

>asteroids missions take years to accomplish, there are severe launch

>windows liitations for asteroids..

If you dont account for the research and development which has to be done
to support human life and work for month of operations, you are right.
I think, if the same amount of capital given, both developments starting now,
the robotic asteroid prospectors would have brought the first samples back
to Earth years before the human operation even starts.

>> Choosing an Asteroid as close to the Sun as possible would reduce

>> equipment size needed to generate energy from solar panels

>remarkable.

>Yes, if you can find one. Are there any asteroid candidates you

>have in mind?

Some of the athens which can be found at
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/Atens.html
were p=Perihelion distance (in AU), Q = Aphelion distance (in AU).

2006 US216 p 0.278 Q 0.995 0.04358 19.9 20070410 87.2 55.3 194.4 3.5 0.563 0.637 ( 30d) MPO111369
2006 KZ39 p 0.292 Q 0.939 0.06936 20.2 20070410 123.6 354.0 42.5 9.4 0.525 0.616 ( 2d) MPO102359
2004 XZ130 p 0.337 Q 0.898 0.09449 20.3 20070410 97.8 4.7 211.8 3.0 0.454 0.618 3 E2006-Y44
2006 WE4 p 0.641 Q 0.928 0.10065 18.7 20070410 34.5 318.6 311.1 24.8 0.183 0.785 ( 25d) E2006-Y09

You are right, they are not all the time at perihelion distance to the Sun, but they are at least inside of Earth
orbit when they are at their Aphelion. I guess we will find some more, even smaller asteroids which are inside
Earth orbit.

>Keep in mind that the large delta vee needed to reach

>a near-sol orbit is higher than the delta-vee needed to land on the

>Moon.

I concede that the time period needed to get to the asteroid and back again
is the weak point at this moment of development (there are very interesting developments going
in SEP-propulsion which promise large thrust enhancements).

But delta-V is not the problem, because solar sail propulsion could deliver already unlimited delta-V
while ion-propulsion delivers also much better delta-V than conventional. The long acceleration time
(low thrust) is the problem now.

Frank

> But delta-V is not the problem, because solar sail propulsion could
deliver already unlimited delta-V
> while ion-propulsion delivers also much better delta-V than
conventional. The long acceleration time
> (low thrust) is the problem now.
>

Non-sequitur.

Solar sail and ion propulsion can also be used to get to the Moon.
Tethers can also be used.

There is no silver bullet here. The choice of propulsion depends
how quickly you want the return on the investment, i.e. how long the
investors are willing to wait.

Today, that drives all commercial missions to use rockets and higher
acceleration.

Consider this, Frank, why do commercial comm-sats today always use
chemical rockets?

They could save a lot of launch cost using ion rockets or solar sails
to get into Geosynchronous orbit. The reason:- The investors are
more interested in getting the bird on station as quickly as possible
so they can start top get the revenue stream as quickly as possible.
A dollar today is worth much more than a dollar next year.

Lunar missions can deliver return much more quickly than asteroid
missions, that will interest investor who want fast ROI.

Investors are not especially interested in cool technology nor fancy
rocket ships, they just want their profit as quickly as possible. If
Buck Rogers can bring home the bacon faster than the competition,
then you will get the money. Otherwise, dream on.

As a practical matter, that is how it works in the space business,
and business in general.

Time is money.

That is not to say investors never perform long term planning, but
they need to see risk reduction and feasibility before committing
funds for the long haul.

Indeed, that is where the synergy of lunar-asteroid development comes
in.

Rapid response lunar companies can validate the business models, to
give investors the confidence to invest in more long asteroid type
missions.

A case in point is the Clementine mission. It was designed to
visit both the Moon and an asteroid. It visited the Moon first,
because it is closer, and allowed the spacecraft to be fully checked
out prior to going to the asteroid. As it turned out it failed
before it reached the target asteroid.

Frank I read your long email were you have written a long grand
description of a large scale elaborate solar system development
infrastructure. But it contains a lot of unknowns and new technology
developments, with a lot of technical and financial risk.

It may well be a good idea in the long term.

But no investor is going to take all of that on faith.

Investors want to see demonstrations; investors invest in a track
record of success. They do not (usually) invest in vaporware.

If you really want to see solar system development, you will have to
demonstrate feasibility to investors via deploying technology
demonstrators in the lunar environment.