Existing Commercial Potential for Helium-3 from Luna

>
> 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.