Tapping the moon's energy

This could be a ‘giant leap’ for India. Tomorrow in the early hours of Wednesday, Chandrayaan 1, the spacecraft that will orbit moon, will be launched by the launch vehicle PSLV C11. Weighing 1304 kgs, the spacecraft will first be put into a 240 x 24,000 km orbit around earth from where gradually it will be drawn by the moon’s gravity into an orbit of 100 kms. There it will stay for 2 years taking pictures of polar regions of the moon, never taken before.

But is that all? NO. Like every other space faring nation, we would also be looking for signs of the fuel gold, Helium 3 first spotted by Apollo astronauts in 1969.

Helium could be the answer to the world’s energy crisis. It is non-polluting and has no radioactive byproducts, plus in a fusion reaction with deuterium, the resulting neutrons can be easily controlled at low cost. There is believed to be 1 million tons of the stuff on moon, produced by the solar wind on striking the moon’s surface.

However, experts ‘believe’ that one would have to strip-mine large areas to get substantial helium from the lunar soil. It would mean blasting million tons of the soil to 800 deg C to obtain 70 tons of Helium. Others believe (?) it would not require more than mining small areas.

Helium aside, the Chandrayaan will also look for clues of water. Once water and fuel are established, colonies will naturally follow.

At this point, one needs to stop and think a bit. Where is this unlimited hunger for energy leading us? As one writer said, to a world of increasing entropy (potential for further work decreases) where energy degradation will lead on to worser scenarios? Should we then be looking at ways to use energy efficiently instead of constantly looking at newer sources?

For now, let’s stop at wishing India’s moon mission success. It will place the country in an esteemed list of four other nations, US, Russia, China and Japan.