Russia announced plans to start experiments to try mining rare earth metals
and minerals from the moon that could be used in the electronics and medical
equipment. The Deputy Chief of Federal Space Agency said the moon had good
conditions for setting up telescopes, navigation stations, but more research
was necessary.
Russia & the US are in a new race to built permanent bases on the moon to
begin an industrial-scale delivery of the rare isotope Helium-3 by 2020.
Helium-3 is a highly effective fuel for thermonuclear reactors but is a very
scarce on earth but abundant on the moon. Based on this estimate, 100 tons of
Helium-3 is enough to meet the earth’s entire energy needs for a whole year. It
is estimated that the moon has up to 500 million tons of Helium-3 trapped in
the upper layers.
