Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: US Intuitive Machines set for second moon landing in February
Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2025 00:11:41 +1100
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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