India’s space programme wants to visit the south side of the moon to study the potential for mining a source of waste-free nuclear energy that could be worth trillions of dollars.
The nation’s equivalent of NASA will launch a rover in October to explore virgin territory on the lunar surface and analyse crust samples for signs of water and helium-3. That isotope is limited on Earth yet so abundant on the moon that it theoretically could meet global energy demands for 250 years if harnessed.
“The countries which have the capacity to bring that source from the moon to Earth will dictate the process,” said K Sivan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). “I don’t want to be just a part of them, I want to lead them.”
The mission would solidify India’s place among the fleet of explorers racing to the moon, Mars and beyond for scientific, commercial or military gains. The governments of the US, China, India, Japan and Russia are competing with startups and billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson to launch satellites, robotic landers, astronauts and tourists into the cosmos.
The rover landing is one step in an envisioned series for ISRO that includes putting a space station in orbit and, potentially, an Indian crew on the moon. The government has yet to set a timeframe.
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China is the only country to put a lander and rover on the moon this century with its Change 3 mission in 2013. The nation plans to return later this year by sending a probe to the unexplored far side.
In the US, President Donald Trump signed a directive calling for astronauts to return to the moon, and NASA’s proposed USD 19 billion budget this fiscal year calls for launching a lunar orbiter by the early 2020s.
ISRO’s estimated budget is less than a 10th of that – about USD 1.7 billion – but accomplishing feats on the cheap has been a hallmark of the agency since the 1960s.
The upcoming launch of Chandrayaan-2 includes an orbiter, lander and a rectangular cover. The six-wheeled vehicle, powered by solar energy, will collect information for at least 14 days and cover an area with a 400-meter radius. The rover will send images to the lander, and the lender will transmit those back to ISRO for analysis.
A primary objective, though, is to search for deposits of helium-3. Solar winds have bombarded the moon with immense quantities of helium-3 because it’s not protected by a magnetic field like Earth is.
The presence of helium-3 was confirmed in moon samples returned by the Apollo missions, and Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt, a geologist who walked on the moon in December 1972, is an avid proponent of mining helium-3.
“It is thought that this isotope could provide safer nuclear energy in a fusion reactor since it is not radioactive and would not produce dangerous waste products,” the European Space Agency said.
There are an estimated 1 million metric tons of helium-3 embedded in the moon, though only about a quarter of that realistically could be brought to Earth, said Gerald Kulcinski, director of the Fusion Technology Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a former member of the NASA Advisory Council.
That’s still enough to meet the world’s current energy demands for at least two, and possibly as many as five, centuries, Kulcinski said. He estimated helium-3’s value at about USD 5 billion a ton, meaning 2,50,000 tons would be worth in the trillions of dollars.
To be sure, there are numerous obstacles to overcome before the material can be used – including the logistics of collection and delivery back to Earth and build fusion power plants to convert the material into energy. Those costs would be stratospheric.
“If that can be cracked, India should be a part of that effort,” said Lydia Powell, who runs the Centre for Resources Management at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation think tank. “If the cost makes sense, it will become a game-changer, no doubt about it.”
Plus, it won’t be easy to mine the moon. Only the US and Luxembourg have passed legislation allowing commercial entities to hold onto what they have mined from space, said David Todd, head of space content at Northampton, England-based Seradata Ltd. There isn’t any international treaty on the issue.
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