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It sounds so far-fetched as to be something out of science fiction: robots mining on the moon.
But there’s one very big incentive to make this lunar extraction dream come true – money, lots and lots of money.
Not millions of dollars: miners don’t get out of bed for that. Not billions; not even trillions.
“We’re talking 20 quadrillion dollars of helium-3, at the current market price, is present on the moon,” said Gary Lai, chief technology officer of moon mining start-up Interlune, based in Seattle.
Interlune wants to begin experimental moon digs as soon as 2028. And, the firm has told news.com.au in the US, it needs Australia’s help to dig up the moon’s very, very valuable dirt.
The pursuit of helium-3 on the moon has been rubbished in the past as literal “moonshine.” But the US isn’t the only country keen on helium-3 – China wants in, potentially setting up a superpower battle for one of the rarest and most valuable substances known to man.
Most of us will be familiar with helium: a gas so light it makes balloons float. More practically, it is used in the huge magnets of MRI scanners and in the production of microchips, among other uses.
Helium-3, an isotope of helium, is a whole other level of high tech usefulness. It’s an essential part of super cool fridges that are needed for quantum computers. Abundant helium-3 could revolutionise quantum computing. It could potentially also be used in low radioactive nuclear fusion reactors, which could dramatically change power generation. Helium-3 could improve MRI scanning imagery and it can even sniff out smuggled nuclear material.
Helium is relatively easy to find on earth. Helium-3 is not. It comprises just 0.000137 per cent of helium. On Earth, it is chiefly harvested from decaying tritium, which is used in nuclear weapons. And nukes are not the easiest thing to get access too.
No surprise, then, that much of the current helium-3 stock is stockpiled by the US government – which has the nukes – with only a limited amount sold.
It’s not that helium-3 is rare in the universe. “The sun spews it out in all directions,” said Lai.
But the earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field swats it away back into space.
“The moon doesn’t have an atmosphere or a strong magnetic field, so for billions of years it’s just been collecting on the surface,” he said.
“Within the first three meters of soil on the moon there’s estimated to be about 1 billion kilograms.”
One kilogram of helium-3 is worth a whopping $20 million. In total, that’s $20 quadrillion potentially just lying around in moon dirt.
“It’s the number that gets everyone’s attention,” said Interlune CEO Rob Meyerson.
“It’s the only thing that’s priced high enough to warrant going to space and bringing it back to Earth.”
Interlune’s building, in a nondescript business park south of Seattle’s CBD, don’t scream “next stop moon.”
Don’t be fooled.
Seattle is the heart of not just America’s space industry – but the world’s. Around half of all the commercial satellites that have ever orbited were constructed in Seattle, or across Washington state.
Its position as a global hub of aircraft building – centred around Boeing’s huge factories – means it is also leading on space exploration.
Alongside Boeing, which had a crucial role in the recent Artemis II mission, firms like Blue Origin, Space X and Amazon Leo have Seattle bases. The US government, where much of the funding comes from, also has a massive presence, with huge chunks of the military housed in the many quiet backwaters of the Puget Sound.
Helium-3 moon mining
It’s one thing to get to space – it’s quite another to land on the moon, start digging up dust, and send it back to Earth, all without humans actually being on the surface to give the rover a kick if it conks out.
Even if those hurdles are surpassed, helium-3 is only a minuscule component of the lunar soil, known as regolith.
The plan is to crush the soil quickly, liberating a gas which is mostly regular helium and hydrogen.
“To separate out the helium-3, we do really deep cryogenic distillation,” said Lai.
“If you cool the gas enough, everything turns to liquid except helium-3, which has the lowest liquefaction point of anything in the solar system.”
Indeed, helium-3 remains a gas at just two degrees Kelvin – that’s just above absolute zero, theoretically the coldest known temperature, equivalent to -273.15C.
You then have to get the helium-3 back to earth.
Right now, Interlune is peppering simulated lunar soil on earth with small amounts of helium-3 and placing it into a chamber that mimics the vacuum of the moon to test how effective its extraction robots are.
‘Moonshine’
Dreams of a helium-3 lunar bonanza aren’t new. And some have rolled their eyes, dismissing it as little more than a fantasy.
Twenty years ago, Oxford particle physicist Frank Close suggested that even if helium-3 could be mined, the complexity of bringing it back could render it useless.
“The lunar-helium-3 story is, to my mind, moonshine,” he scathingly wrote in 2007.
But that scepticism has been more than outweighed by the sheer ambition – and the profits that could be made.
Interlune has secured $US23 million ($32m) in funding including a contract worth $US6.9m ($9.8m) with NASA to advance its experiments.
Last month, it said it had managed to extract 99 per cent pure helium-3 from standard helium found on Earth through its cryogenic technology. It means it could start harvesting the isotope before it even gets to the moon. But that same tech will also be key to moon-mined helium-3.
Australia’s help sought
The company says it’s looking to Australia for help.
Already, the Australian Space Agency is working with NASA to design a space rover (yes, it’s called “Roo-ver”) that could pick up and transport regolith – where helium-3 would be present.
“Australia has always been a key partner with NASA so we see the collaboration with the Australian mining sector as being an obvious synergy with us,” Interlune chief operating officer Indra Hornsby told news.com.au.
“We’re looking for strategic partners in the Western Australia mining ecosystem because Australia’s got that combination of the space exploration and the mining exploration – and that is a sweet spot for us.”
Hornsby said Interlune had already held discussions with several companies in Perth about collaborating.
China-US moon clash
But if the US is investing in possible mines on the moon, you can bet other nations are too.
China is spending billions on a magnetic space launcher that could extract helium-3 and ricochet capsules of it back to Earth.
Notably, China has not signed the US-backed Artemis Accords. These set out guidelines for space exploration, including that it should be peaceful, activities should be transparent and nations should “refrain from any intentional actions that may create harmful interference with each other’s use of outer space.” Even if China had signed, the accords are non-binding.
Could a celestial conflict arise due to a helium-3 gold rush?
“No, we’re not going to start a war with China,” said Hornsby, confidently.
“China is not a signatory of the Artemis Accords, that’s true, but China does participate actively with the United Nations and the US on the peaceful uses of outer space, so they are co-ordinating.
“It’s not in anyone’s interest, including China’s, to create conflict on the moon,” she said.
“The moon’s a very, very big place, and we don’t see a conflict developing in terms of where China wants to go, where we want to go and where other nations are focused.”
Indeed, Interlune has said its entire operation for the first five years could fit within one kilometre square and it initially only expects to remove 10-20 kilograms of the estimated one billion kilos of helium-3 from the surface.
Right now, moon mining remains a lunar dream. But the US is rushing to make it a reality.
The first step is to get astronauts back on the moon by 2028 as part of Artemis III. If that happens, a Seattle company will be hoping they’ll take a rover with them, which could be the next huge step towards reaping a multi-quadrillion windfall.
