• US Intuitive Machines set for second moon landing in February

    From Jan Panteltje@21:1/5 to All on Fri Jan 10 10:47:04 2025
    Intuitive Machines set for second landing, looking to build a lunar economy
    https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/intuitive-machines-set-for-second-landing-looking-to-build-a-lunar-economy/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to All on Fri Jan 10 08:58:31 2025
    On Fri, 10 Jan 2025 10:47:04 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
    wrote:

    Intuitive Machines set for second landing, looking to build a lunar economy
    https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/intuitive-machines-set-for-second-landing-looking-to-build-a-lunar-economy/

    A "lunar economy" sounds silly. There's nothing up there but dirt and radiation.

    May as well plop your business in the middle of a desert, or
    antartica, or on a barge offshorse.

    I was once involved with some utopians who wanted to set up an ideal
    society, New Island, on a barge in the Gulf of Mexico. Same idea. It
    sounded dreadful so I declined. But at least the barge would have had
    air and rain and a way to paddle home.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Bill Sloman@21:1/5 to john larkin on Sat Jan 11 15:17:22 2025
    On 11/01/2025 3:58 am, john larkin wrote:
    On Fri, 10 Jan 2025 10:47:04 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
    wrote:

    Intuitive Machines set for second landing, looking to build a lunar economy >> https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/intuitive-machines-set-for-second-landing-looking-to-build-a-lunar-economy/

    A "lunar economy" sounds silly. There's nothing up there but dirt and radiation.


    And a whole lot of helium-3.

    https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/6.2020-4001

    May as well plop your business in the middle of a desert, or
    antartica, or on a barge offshorse.

    John Larkin doesn't know enough to realise that the business might be exploiting resources that might not be available anywhere else

    I was once involved with some utopians who wanted to set up an ideal
    society, New Island, on a barge in the Gulf of Mexico. Same idea. It
    sounded dreadful so I declined. But at least the barge would have had
    air and rain and a way to paddle home.

    John Larkin can understand the need for air and water. He less
    well-informed about more exotic resources, and incapable of learning
    what they might be.

    --
    Bill Sloman, Sydnhey


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  • From Jeff Layman@21:1/5 to Bill Sloman on Sat Jan 11 08:29:57 2025
    On 11/01/2025 04:17, Bill Sloman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 3:58 am, john larkin wrote:
    On Fri, 10 Jan 2025 10:47:04 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
    wrote:

    Intuitive Machines set for second landing, looking to build a lunar economy >>> https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/intuitive-machines-set-for-second-landing-looking-to-build-a-lunar-economy/

    A "lunar economy" sounds silly. There's nothing up there but dirt and
    radiation.


    And a whole lot of helium-3.

    https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/6.2020-4001

    Everything I've read about fusion power states that to start it an
    immense amount of power is required. How are you going to get that power
    source to the moon? And if you can do that, why not use that to provide
    lunar power needs? Or is it that you're going to do something like
    charge a large bank of capacitors from solar cells on the moon? How are
    you going to get those capacitors and solar cells to the moon? And so on.

    By the way, whoever wrote that abstract didn't bother checking it: "...
    from 3He, fusion power can be provided to terrestrial electrical needs
    and to interplanetary travel." Did they /really/ mean "terrestrial"
    electrical needs? Or did they intend to say "lunar" electrical needs?

    You might also like to consider a couple of comments from <https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Preparing_for_the_Future/Space_for_Earth/Energy/Helium-3_mining_on_the_lunar_surface>:


    "...Gerald Kulcinski at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is another
    leading proponent. He has created a small reactor at the Fusion
    Technology Institute, but so far it has not been possible to create the
    helium fusion reaction with a net power output."

    "Not everyone is in agreement that Helium 3 will produce a safe fusion solution. In an article entitled "Fears over Factoids" in 2007, the
    theoretical physicist Frank Close famously described the concept as "moonshine"."

    --
    Jeff

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  • From Bill Sloman@21:1/5 to Jeff Layman on Sun Jan 12 00:11:41 2025
    On 11/01/2025 7:29 pm, Jeff Layman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 04:17, Bill Sloman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 3:58 am, john larkin wrote:
    On Fri, 10 Jan 2025 10:47:04 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
    wrote:

    Intuitive Machines set for second landing, looking to build a lunar
    economy
    https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/intuitive-machines-set-for-second-landing-looking-to-build-a-lunar-economy/

    A "lunar economy" sounds silly. There's nothing up there but dirt and
    radiation.


    And a whole lot of helium-3.

    https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/6.2020-4001

    Everything I've read about fusion power states that to start it an
    immense amount of power is required.

    Then you haven't read much. Cold fusion wouldn't take much power at all,
    if it worked.

    How are you going to get that power
    source to the moon? And if you can do that, why not use that to provide
    lunar power needs? Or is it that you're going to do something like
    charge a large bank of capacitors from solar cells on the moon? How are
    you going to get those capacitors and solar cells to the moon? And so on.

    By the way, whoever wrote that abstract didn't bother checking it: "...
    from 3He, fusion power can be provided to terrestrial electrical needs
    and to interplanetary travel." Did they /really/ mean "terrestrial" electrical needs? Or did they intend to say "lunar" electrical needs?

    You might also like to consider a couple of comments from <https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Preparing_for_the_Future/Space_for_Earth/Energy/Helium-3_mining_on_the_lunar_surface>:

    "...Gerald Kulcinski at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is another leading proponent. He has created a small reactor at the Fusion
    Technology Institute, but so far it has not been possible to create the helium fusion reaction with a net power output."

    "Not everyone is in agreement that Helium 3 will produce a safe fusion solution.

    We do have an unlimited supply of people willing to express opinions
    about stuff they known very little about. Some - like Cursitor Doom -
    seem to search out the most fatuous misinformation they can find and
    repost that.

    In an article entitled "Fears over Factoids" in 2007, the
    theoretical physicist Frank Close famously described the concept as "moonshine"."

    https://hb11.energy/

    is perhaps also moonshine, but they do seem to be attracting investors. Boron-hydrogen fusion does have the advantage of not generating
    neutrons, so the hardware would last a lot longer if they ever got it to
    work (and the prospects are rather better than they are for cold fusion).

    --
    Bill Sloman, Sydney

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  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jan 11 08:14:27 2025
    On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 08:29:57 +0000, Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid>
    wrote:

    On 11/01/2025 04:17, Bill Sloman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 3:58 am, john larkin wrote:
    On Fri, 10 Jan 2025 10:47:04 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
    wrote:

    Intuitive Machines set for second landing, looking to build a lunar economy
    https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/intuitive-machines-set-for-second-landing-looking-to-build-a-lunar-economy/

    A "lunar economy" sounds silly. There's nothing up there but dirt and
    radiation.


    And a whole lot of helium-3.

    https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/6.2020-4001

    Everything I've read about fusion power states that to start it an
    immense amount of power is required. How are you going to get that power >source to the moon? And if you can do that, why not use that to provide
    lunar power needs? Or is it that you're going to do something like
    charge a large bank of capacitors from solar cells on the moon? How are
    you going to get those capacitors and solar cells to the moon? And so on.

    By the way, whoever wrote that abstract didn't bother checking it: "...
    from 3He, fusion power can be provided to terrestrial electrical needs
    and to interplanetary travel." Did they /really/ mean "terrestrial" >electrical needs? Or did they intend to say "lunar" electrical needs?

    You might also like to consider a couple of comments from ><https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Preparing_for_the_Future/Space_for_Earth/Energy/Helium-3_mining_on_the_lunar_surface>:


    "...Gerald Kulcinski at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is another >leading proponent. He has created a small reactor at the Fusion
    Technology Institute, but so far it has not been possible to create the >helium fusion reaction with a net power output."

    "Not everyone is in agreement that Helium 3 will produce a safe fusion >solution. In an article entitled "Fears over Factoids" in 2007, the >theoretical physicist Frank Close famously described the concept as >"moonshine"."

    The He3 concentration in moon dirt is estimated at up to 15 PPB, and conjectured that it could hit 50 PPB in some places.

    One would have to sift through a lot of dirt to get a gram of He3, and
    you'd need robots, not human miners with picks and wheelbarrows.

    Even if He3 fusion worked, mining it on the moon and shipping it back
    to earth would probably be a huge net loser.

    But NASA is in the business of losing money. They are always loooking
    for ways to do that better.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Jeff Layman@21:1/5 to Bill Sloman on Sat Jan 11 21:04:16 2025
    On 11/01/2025 13:11, Bill Sloman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 7:29 pm, Jeff Layman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 04:17, Bill Sloman wrote:

    Everything I've read about fusion power states that to start it an
    immense amount of power is required.

    Then you haven't read much. Cold fusion wouldn't take much power at all,
    if it worked.

    Is that the best you can do? You'll get a reputation for trolling, or
    perhaps you've got a signed picture of Fleischmann and Pons on your wall.

    How are you going to get that power
    source to the moon? And if you can do that, why not use that to provide
    lunar power needs? Or is it that you're going to do something like
    charge a large bank of capacitors from solar cells on the moon? How are
    you going to get those capacitors and solar cells to the moon? And so on.

    By the way, whoever wrote that abstract didn't bother checking it: "...
    from 3He, fusion power can be provided to terrestrial electrical needs
    and to interplanetary travel." Did they /really/ mean "terrestrial"
    electrical needs? Or did they intend to say "lunar" electrical needs?

    You might also like to consider a couple of comments from
    <https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Preparing_for_the_Future/Space_for_Earth/Energy/Helium-3_mining_on_the_lunar_surface>:

    "...Gerald Kulcinski at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is another
    leading proponent. He has created a small reactor at the Fusion
    Technology Institute, but so far it has not been possible to create the
    helium fusion reaction with a net power output."

    "Not everyone is in agreement that Helium 3 will produce a safe fusion
    solution.

    We do have an unlimited supply of people willing to express opinions
    about stuff they known very little about. Some - like Cursitor Doom -
    seem to search out the most fatuous misinformation they can find and
    repost that.

    In an article entitled "Fears over Factoids" in 2007, the
    theoretical physicist Frank Close famously described the concept as
    "moonshine"."

    https://hb11.energy/

    is perhaps also moonshine, but they do seem to be attracting investors. Boron-hydrogen fusion does have the advantage of not generating
    neutrons, so the hardware would last a lot longer if they ever got it to
    work (and the prospects are rather better than they are for cold fusion).

    Perhaps you'd like to predict when /you/ think that fusion energy will
    become commercially available, and what form it will take. That should
    be easy enough as you obviously know a lot about fusion energy.

    --
    Jeff

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  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jan 11 13:52:10 2025
    On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 21:04:16 +0000, Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid>
    wrote:

    On 11/01/2025 13:11, Bill Sloman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 7:29 pm, Jeff Layman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 04:17, Bill Sloman wrote:

    Everything I've read about fusion power states that to start it an
    immense amount of power is required.

    Then you haven't read much. Cold fusion wouldn't take much power at all,
    if it worked.

    Is that the best you can do? You'll get a reputation for trolling, or
    perhaps you've got a signed picture of Fleischmann and Pons on your wall.

    Cold Fusion is mostly bad calorimetry.

    But really, Sloman has declared you to be ignorant, so back off and
    beg forgiveness.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Joe Gwinn@21:1/5 to '''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk on Sat Jan 11 17:59:58 2025
    On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 22:37:45 +0000, Martin Brown
    <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

    On 11/01/2025 21:04, Jeff Layman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 13:11, Bill Sloman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 7:29 pm, Jeff Layman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 04:17, Bill Sloman wrote:

    Everything I've read about fusion power states that to start it an
    immense amount of power is required.

    Then you haven't read much. Cold fusion wouldn't take much power at all, >>> if it worked.

    Is that the best you can do? You'll get a reputation for trolling, or
    perhaps you've got a signed picture of Fleischmann and Pons on your wall.

    To be fair they were perfectly good electrochemists but out of their
    depth where calorimetry was concerned. I'm still just about prepared to >believe that they really did see something very odd but irreproducible.

    They published prematurely for fear of another real muon catalysed cold >fusion method stealing their thunder. Unwisely as it turned out.

    You couldn't buy palladium or heavy water for months after their paper
    was first published since everybody and their dog had a go at it. No-one
    else could make it work although some are still trying.

    is perhaps also moonshine, but they do seem to be attracting investors.
    Boron-hydrogen fusion does have the advantage of not generating
    neutrons, so the hardware would last a lot longer if they ever got it to >>> work (and the prospects are rather better than they are for cold fusion). >>
    Perhaps you'd like to predict when /you/ think that fusion energy will
    become commercially available, and what form it will take. That should
    be easy enough as you obviously know a lot about fusion energy.

    I predict that fusion power will be commercially viable in about 50
    years from now (according to its proponents looking for venture capital)
    and also that this prediction is time invariant.

    This is progress! It used to be 30 years in the future.

    Joe Gwinn

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Martin Brown@21:1/5 to Jeff Layman on Sat Jan 11 22:37:45 2025
    On 11/01/2025 21:04, Jeff Layman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 13:11, Bill Sloman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 7:29 pm, Jeff Layman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 04:17, Bill Sloman wrote:

    Everything I've read about fusion power states that to start it an
    immense amount of power is required.

    Then you haven't read much. Cold fusion wouldn't take much power at all,
    if it worked.

    Is that the best you can do? You'll get a reputation for trolling, or
    perhaps you've got a signed picture of Fleischmann and Pons on your wall.

    To be fair they were perfectly good electrochemists but out of their
    depth where calorimetry was concerned. I'm still just about prepared to
    believe that they really did see something very odd but irreproducible.

    They published prematurely for fear of another real muon catalysed cold
    fusion method stealing their thunder. Unwisely as it turned out.

    You couldn't buy palladium or heavy water for months after their paper
    was first published since everybody and their dog had a go at it. No-one
    else could make it work although some are still trying.

    is perhaps also moonshine, but they do seem to be attracting investors.
    Boron-hydrogen fusion does have the advantage of not generating
    neutrons, so the hardware would last a lot longer if they ever got it to
    work (and the prospects are rather better than they are for cold fusion).

    Perhaps you'd like to predict when /you/ think that fusion energy will
    become commercially available, and what form it will take. That should
    be easy enough as you obviously know a lot about fusion energy.

    I predict that fusion power will be commercially viable in about 50
    years from now (according to its proponents looking for venture capital)
    and also that this prediction is time invariant.

    --
    Martin Brown

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Bill Sloman@21:1/5 to Jeff Layman on Sun Jan 12 13:26:12 2025
    On 12/01/2025 8:04 am, Jeff Layman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 13:11, Bill Sloman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 7:29 pm, Jeff Layman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 04:17, Bill Sloman wrote:

    Everything I've read about fusion power states that to start it an
    immense amount of power is required.

    Then you haven't read much. Cold fusion wouldn't take much power at all,
    if it worked.

    Is that the best you can do? You'll get a reputation for trolling, or
    perhaps you've got a signed picture of Fleischmann and Pons on your wall.

    When I was I was post-doc in the Southampton University Chemistry
    Department from 1973 to 1975, Fleischmann was the professor of electrochemistry. I didn't have anything to do with him, but I knew some
    of his graduate students and post-docs, and Fleischmann clearly wasn't
    any kind of flake.

    How are you going to get that power
    source to the moon? And if you can do that, why not use that to provide
    lunar power needs? Or is it that you're going to do something like
    charge a large bank of capacitors from solar cells on the moon? How are
    you going to get those capacitors and solar cells to the moon? And so
    on.

    By the way, whoever wrote that abstract didn't bother checking it: "...
    from 3He, fusion power can be provided to terrestrial electrical needs
    and to interplanetary travel." Did they /really/ mean "terrestrial"
    electrical needs? Or did they intend to say "lunar" electrical needs?

    You might also like to consider a couple of comments from
    <https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Preparing_for_the_Future/Space_for_Earth/Energy/Helium-3_mining_on_the_lunar_surface>:

    "...Gerald Kulcinski at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is another
    leading proponent. He has created a small reactor at the Fusion
    Technology Institute, but so far it has not been possible to create the
    helium fusion reaction with a net power output."

    "Not everyone is in agreement that Helium 3 will produce a safe fusion
    solution.

    We do have an unlimited supply of people willing to express opinions
    about stuff they known very little about. Some - like Cursitor Doom -
    seem to search out the most fatuous misinformation they can find and
    repost that.

    In an article entitled "Fears over Factoids" in 2007, the
    theoretical physicist Frank Close famously described the concept as
    "moonshine"."

    https://hb11.energy/

    is perhaps also moonshine, but they do seem to be attracting investors.
    Boron-hydrogen fusion does have the advantage of not generating
    neutrons, so the hardware would last a lot longer if they ever got it to
    work (and the prospects are rather better than they are for cold fusion).

    Perhaps you'd like to predict when /you/ think that fusion energy will
    become commercially available, and what form it will take. That should
    be easy enough as you obviously know a lot about fusion energy.

    I know quite enough to know that predicting when nuclear fusion will
    become a commercially viable energy source isn't something anybody could
    do at the moment. We do have this nuclear fusion reactor at the centre
    of the solar system, and it is providing all the energy we use, some of
    it captured by plants a few hundred million years ago.

    It seems likely that we will eventually find a way of fusing light
    elements locally to serve as a controllable local energy source, and
    people are exploring a lot of possibilities, but predicting if any of
    the ones we are currently looking at will pan out is pure guesswork, and
    it's always possible that somebody will find a new approach which will
    wipe the floor with everybody else.

    What is obvious is that it is a promising area in which to look.

    --
    Bill Sloman, Sydney

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  • From Bill Sloman@21:1/5 to john larkin on Sun Jan 12 13:35:54 2025
    On 12/01/2025 8:52 am, john larkin wrote:
    On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 21:04:16 +0000, Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid>
    wrote:

    On 11/01/2025 13:11, Bill Sloman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 7:29 pm, Jeff Layman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 04:17, Bill Sloman wrote:

    Everything I've read about fusion power states that to start it an
    immense amount of power is required.

    Then you haven't read much. Cold fusion wouldn't take much power at all, >>> if it worked.

    Is that the best you can do? You'll get a reputation for trolling, or
    perhaps you've got a signed picture of Fleischmann and Pons on your wall.

    Cold Fusion is mostly bad calorimetry.

    But really, Sloman has declared you to be ignorant, so back off and
    beg forgiveness.

    John Larkin really is ignorant, and I call him on it a lot, and he
    resents it (he should try to get less ignorant, but vanity prevents him
    from recognising how ignorant he is).

    I was twitting Jeff Layman for being less precise than he might have
    been - he clearly isn't ignorant - but John Larkin has once again
    projected his own resentment.

    --
    Bill Sloman, Sydney

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Bill Sloman@21:1/5 to Joe Gwinn on Sun Jan 12 13:42:39 2025
    On 12/01/2025 9:59 am, Joe Gwinn wrote:
    On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 22:37:45 +0000, Martin Brown
    <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

    On 11/01/2025 21:04, Jeff Layman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 13:11, Bill Sloman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 7:29 pm, Jeff Layman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 04:17, Bill Sloman wrote:

    Everything I've read about fusion power states that to start it an
    immense amount of power is required.

    Then you haven't read much. Cold fusion wouldn't take much power at all, >>>> if it worked.

    Is that the best you can do? You'll get a reputation for trolling, or
    perhaps you've got a signed picture of Fleischmann and Pons on your wall. >>
    To be fair they were perfectly good electrochemists but out of their
    depth where calorimetry was concerned. I'm still just about prepared to
    believe that they really did see something very odd but irreproducible.

    They published prematurely for fear of another real muon catalysed cold
    fusion method stealing their thunder. Unwisely as it turned out.

    You couldn't buy palladium or heavy water for months after their paper
    was first published since everybody and their dog had a go at it. No-one
    else could make it work although some are still trying.

    is perhaps also moonshine, but they do seem to be attracting investors. >>>> Boron-hydrogen fusion does have the advantage of not generating
    neutrons, so the hardware would last a lot longer if they ever got it to >>>> work (and the prospects are rather better than they are for cold fusion). >>>
    Perhaps you'd like to predict when /you/ think that fusion energy will
    become commercially available, and what form it will take. That should
    be easy enough as you obviously know a lot about fusion energy.

    I predict that fusion power will be commercially viable in about 50
    years from now (according to its proponents looking for venture capital)
    and also that this prediction is time invariant.

    This is progress! It used to be 30 years in the future.

    It's not progress. "Thirty years in the future" and "fifty years in the
    future" are just an expression of the opinion that fusion power will
    eventually be viable but we don't know when. The numbers don't signify
    anything more than "not all that soon".

    --
    Bill Sloman, Sydhey

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Bill Sloman@21:1/5 to john larkin on Tue Jan 14 02:40:28 2025
    On 12/01/2025 3:14 am, john larkin wrote:
    On Sat, 11 Jan 2025 08:29:57 +0000, Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid>
    wrote:

    On 11/01/2025 04:17, Bill Sloman wrote:
    On 11/01/2025 3:58 am, john larkin wrote:
    On Fri, 10 Jan 2025 10:47:04 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
    wrote:

    Intuitive Machines set for second landing, looking to build a lunar economy
    https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/intuitive-machines-set-for-second-landing-looking-to-build-a-lunar-economy/

    A "lunar economy" sounds silly. There's nothing up there but dirt and
    radiation.


    And a whole lot of helium-3.

    https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/6.2020-4001

    <snip>


    The He3 concentration in moon dirt is estimated at up to 15 PPB, and conjectured that it could hit 50 PPB in some places.

    One would have to sift through a lot of dirt to get a gram of He3, and
    you'd need robots, not human miners with picks and wheelbarrows.

    Picks, shovels and wheelbarrows wouldn't make a lot of sense on a
    airless world,and any sensible person would heat the rock in a closed
    chamber and pump out any helium gas that came off.

    Even if He3 fusion worked, mining it on the moon and shipping it back
    to earth would probably be a huge net loser.

    The assumption would be that you'd use it up up there.

    But NASA is in the business of losing money. They are always looking
    for ways to do that better.

    It may look that way if you lack the wit to realise what they are
    actually doing, and the imagination to realise that some of what they
    are doing could actually be useful.

    --
    Bill Sloman, Sydney

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  • From David Lesher@21:1/5 to Jeff Layman on Tue Jan 14 18:34:43 2025
    Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> writes:


    Perhaps you'd like to predict when /you/ think that fusion energy will
    become commercially available, and what form it will take. That should
    be easy enough as you obviously know a lot about fusion energy.

    A friend worked on fusion power at LLNL starting 44 years ago.

    He espouses:

    A) When a "breakthrough" is in the news, that means someone's research grant
    is up for renewal.

    B) Fusion power is always 30 years away; it's a constant of the universe
    like pi, or e, etc.

    It was 30 years away when he started working on it, and 30 when he left,
    and it still is.


    --
    A host is a host from coast to coast...............wb8foz@panix.com
    & no one will talk to a host that's close..........................
    Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
    is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

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