Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt (left) and Steve Taranovich (right) during a meeting we had at the Long Island Cradle of Aviation. (Image from Loretta Taranovich)

Apollo 17 carried the last astronauts to the Moon on December 10, 1972 (I had just graduated with a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering degree that May from New York University School of Engineering & Science). The Crew consisted of:

Eugene A. Cernan, Commander Harrison H. Schmitt, Lunar Module Pilot Ronald E. Evans, Command Module Pilot

The lunar landing site chosen for this last mission was the Taurus-Littrow highlands and valley area. That site was picked as a location because that was where both older and younger rocks than those previously returned from the other Apollo missions. Scientific objectives of the Apollo 17 mission included, geological surveying and sampling of materials and surface features.

It was no coincidence that they had an astronaut on board who had a Ph.D. in Geology----Dr. Harrison H. Schmitt. One of the key elements he found in the Lunar Regolith was Helium-3. Dr. Schmitt told me that if we could fill an area the size of the old Space Shuttle bay with Helium-3, bring it back to Earth, and use it in a Fusion Reactor, we could power the United States for a year. As a plus, the by product of Fusion is NOT radioactive! Only one metric Tonne (2200 pounds) of Helium-3 fused with Deuterium, a heavy isotope of Hydrogen, will have enough energy to supply a city of ten million with a year’s worth of electricity! Proposed fusion reactors generally use hydrogen isotopes such as deuterium and tritium, which react more easily than hydrogen to allow them to reach the Lawson criterion requirements with less extreme conditions.

There is a great deal of excellent information on Helium-3 and many other experiences as to why we need to get back to the Moon, in Schmitt’s book entitled, “Return to the Moon”---it’s a real page-turner!

Mining the Moon will be a key effort for success, see my hackaday.io article “NASA: From the Moon to Mars” and a NASA JPL discussion on How Moon mining could work. NASA’s Artemis program discusses returning to the Moon on their site. NASA also has an excellent article on Harnessing power from the Moon.

Here is how Astronaut Harrison Schmitt signed my copy of his book “Return to the Moon“ (Image from Loretta Taranovich)

One of the stumbling blocks for using Helium-3 in a Fusion reactor is that we have no fusion reactors except in university and research stages. Naysayers claim that this will never happen. Well, people said that man could never fly, or how can we ever get to the Moon? That’s impossible!

Well, it will probably be well into the late 2020/early 2030 timeframe before we will be looking at mining Helium-3. A company named Fusion Reactors is saying that they can develop a fusion reactor that could deliver energy to the grid by the end of 2032. With NASA and the US government help, this can be a reality. Then there is ITER, a 35 nation collaboration effort to build a fusion reactor.

Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, while releasing energy. Devices designed to harness this energy are known as fusion reactors.

As a source of power, nuclear fusion is expected to have several advantages over fission. These include reduced or no radioactivity in operation and little or no high-level nuclear waste, ample fuel supplies, and increased safety.

Check out this Facebook Fusion Reactors site and the World Nuclear Association. There is also a good article on bigthink.com