Existing Helium-3 market could finance lunar elevator today

James,

I am not qualified to respond to your detailed proposal.

All I can say is that the US Govt reports from CRS and GAO did not consider any process like what you described, so I suspect it will not work.

The entire resources of the US govt have done a lot of brainstorming on possible ways of synthesizing Helium-3 and came up with absolutely nothing that would work in any cost effective and safe manner.

All the known processes for sytnehsizing Helium-3 suffer from one or more of the following problems:

1) very low yield
2) major safety problems
3) enormous capital cost

The US Govt has abandoned all attempts at producing Helium-3, they cannot figure out any way of doing it in a cost effective manner.

There are no known isotopes in any quantity which decay to He-3.

They have considered nuclear reactors, but there are major safety problems with existing reactors which are a showstopper with the particular types of nuclear reactions involved ... capital cost of building new reactors is enormous and regulatory approval takes 15+ years.

They have considered special particle accelerators but the cost per liter of He3 produced is astronomical.

References:

Ref1 - The Helium-3 Shortage: Supply, Demand, and Options for Congress
Dana A. Shea + Daniel Morgan - Specialist s in Science and Technology
Policy

Dec 22, 2010 Congressional Research Service 7-5700 www.crs.gov
R41419

Ref2 - GAO-11-472 from May 2011,
title: MANAGING CRITICAL ISOTOPES Weaknesses in DOE's Management of
Helium-3 Delayed the Federal Response to a Critical Supply Shortage