Write your abstract here. China''s New Moon
Mission Blasts Off - Is Mining Helium 3 the Ultimate Goal ?
A daunting
new
mission to the Moon was launched Tuesday by the Chinese
National Space Administration (CNSA). Chang’e-1 blasted off from the
Xichang Satellite Launch Centre, Sichuan, atop a Long March 3A rocket
-the first step in the Chinese ambition to land robotic explorers on
the Moon before 2020.Chang’e-1 has four year-long mission goals to accomplish. The
first is to make three-dimensional images of many lunar landforms and
outline maps of major lunar geological structures. This mapping will
include the first detailed images taken of some regions near the lunar
poles. Chang’e-1 is also designed to analyze the abundance of up
to 14 chemical elements and their distribution across the lunar
surface. Thirdly it will measure the depth of the lunar soil and lastly
it will explore the space weather between the Earth and the Moon.To
perform its science mission, Chang’e-1 carries a variety of
instruments: a CCD stereo camera, a laser altimeter, an imaging
interferometer, a gamma-ray/X-ray spectrometer, a microwave radiometer,
a high-energy particle detector, and a solar wind particle detector. Chang’e-1,
named after the Chinese goddess of the Moon, represents the first phase
in the Chinese Lunar Exploration Programme (CLEP). This programme is
expected to last until around 2020 and the next phase will include a
lander and associated rover. Looking farther into the future, plans are
being drawn up for a sample return mission to bring lunar rocks to
Earth for analysis. Earlier this year, shortly after Russia claimed a vast portion of
the Arctic sea floor, accelerating an international race for the
natural resources as global warming opens polar access, China has
announced plans to map "every inch" of the surface of the Moon and
exploit the vast quantities of
Helium-3 thought to lie buried in lunar
rocks as part of its ambitious space-exploration program. Ouyang Ziyuan, head of the first phase of lunar exploration, was quoted
on government-sanctioned news site ChinaNews.com describing plans to
collect three dimensional images of the Moon for future mining of
Helium 3: "There are altogether 15 tons of helium-3 on Earth, while on
the Moon, the total amount of Helium-3 can reach one to five million
tons." "Helium-3 is considered as a long-term, stable, safe, clean and cheap
material for human beings to get nuclear energy through controllable
nuclear fusion experiments," Ziyuan added. "If we human beings can
finally use such energy material to generate electricity, then China
might need 10 tons of helium-3 every year and in the world, about 100
tons of helium-3 will be needed every year." Helium 3 fusion energy - classic Buck Rogers propulsion system- may be
the key to future space exploration and settlement, requiring less
radioactive shielding, lightening the load. Scientists estimate there
are about one million tons of helium 3 on the moon, enough to power the
world for thousands of years. The equivalent of a single space shuttle
load or roughly 25 tons could supply the entire United States'' energy
needs for a year. Thermonuclear reactors capable of processing Helium-3 would have to be
built, along with major transport system to get various equipment to
the Moon to process huge amounts of lunar soil and get the minerals
back to Earth. With China''s announcement, a new Moon-focused Space Race seems locked
in place. China made its first steps in space just a few years ago, and
is in the process of establishing a lunar base by 2024. NASA is
currently working on a new space vehicle, Orion, which is destined to
fly the U.S. astronauts to the moon in 13 years, to deploy a permanent
base. Russia, the first to put a probe on the moon, plans to deploy a lunar
base in 2new, reusable spacecraft, called Kliper, has been
earmarked for lunar flights, with the International Space Station being
an essential galactic pit stop. The harvesting of Helium-3 on the could start by 2025. Our lunar mining
could be but a jumping off point for Helium 3 extraction from the
atmospheres of our Solar System gas giants, Saturn and Jupiter. UN Treaties in place state that the moon and its minerals are the
common heritage of mankind, so the quest to use Helium-3 as an energy
source would likely demand joint international co-operation. Hopefully,
exploitation of the moon''s resources will be viewed as a solution for
thw world, rather than an out-moded nation-state solution. In October 2003, China became the third space-faring nation (after the
U.S. and Russia) after it launched its first “Taikonaut” into orbit. Europe and India are accelerating their efforts to conduct robotic
science on space-born platforms. There’s also a growing interest in
space exploration from a dozen other countries around the world,
including Kenya, whose equatorial location on the east coast of Africa
makes it geographically ideal for space launches. While this emerging international community claims it''s slice of the
aerospace universe, the U.S., by contrast, is no longer a leader but
simply a player, according to nationally renowned astrophysicist Neil
deGrasse Tyson, who points out that "we’ve moved backward just by
standing still." Galaxy News Reported October 20th, 2007.