35 thoughts on “Lunar Helium-3 Extraction”

  1. “Terrestrial mining is ethically problematic by virtue of its directly destructive impact and by virtue of its contribution to both the depletion of fossil fuels and (through the use of the latter) to the raising of C02 levels in the atmosphere.”

    You can stop after that first sentence.

    The authors emit ethically forbidden pollutants.

  2. He seems to make two points:
    (1) We need to preserve the moon from mining, which is destructive and harmful.
    (2) We don’t need fusion energy because we’ll just use it for things Tony Milligan disapproves of, like advertising and prestige.
    In other words, the ravings of a madman.

  3. “Eco-minded critics,with whom I am broadly in sympathy, who argue that we already have more energy than we can handle without causing terrestrial damage may have a point.”

    Whaaaat? We have too much energy? Nonsense.

    “He mining is unlikely to go towards a great life-enhancing project. It is likely to be used for comparatively trivial purposes such as advertising, waste and the enhancement of prestige.”

    I assume we are talking about generating electricity which is used for lighting, manufacturing, heating/cooling, and many other non-trivial uses.

    “Finally, as well as an (indirect-duty) appeal to the Moon as part of the common heritage of mankind and a(direct-duty) appeal to its integrity, there are mixed appeals where concern for what is human and for what is non-human are not easily disentangled.”

    Solution: Limit major development to the far side. Regulations regarding operations will spring up with any settlement. Mining operations should be conducted responsibly and more than one party will determine what that means.

  5. Presumably this idiot academic is on the public payroll somewhere?
    I had trouble reading that dreck. Let’s mine the Moon and settle it so that with a decent telescope on Earth we can see the lights of the mines, settlements and transport networks where it is night on Luna.

    1. I want to see man made crap on the Moon as much as I want to see windmills in the wilderness, not at all.

      The Moon isn’t just important to space cadets.

      1. Man made crap, like the Eiffel Tower? Taj Mahal? The Colosseum? Parthenon? Sydney Opera House? Brandenburg Gate?

        1. Or delapidated crumbling ruins like detroit, strip mines, bright lights at night, ect. Do you really think a Taj Mahal is going to be built or that what will be built will be beautiful? I don’t want “art” projects visible either.

          It is a nearly pristine environment that doesn’t regenerate like Earth’s surface.

          The Moon is important to a lot of people. Space cadets would do well to take that into consideration when planning development. If you want public support and approval but don’t want government stopping all lunar activity, you shouldn’t be so excited to deface the Moon. And the good news is there is a solution, the far side.

  6. It was only a couple of weeks ago that mining helium 3 on the Moon was last brought to my notice. Do see the movie “Iron Sky”. Loved the female US President in 2018, complete with stuffed polar bears in the oval office.

      1. Yes, via DVD. ‘Iron Sky’ is a fun, campy movie that bears repeated viewing. “Black to the Moon? Yes We Can!”

        1. And here I thought they were doing a not so subtle satire of the leftist worldview.

          I guess either way it is a joke.

    2. And see the Japanese anime series “Planetes”, which postulates a thriving, commercial space culture in about 60 years, that is based on He3 mining and exploitation of other space resources. The nice thing is that the formerly rich petroleum exporters are reduced to insignificance on the future global stage.

      I really like that they expect humans to still be smoking tobacco products in the future, even in space. This is a key aspect of one episode, even.

  7. Well, exploiting an innocent atom because it was born with a neutron deficiency is definitely unethical. You just have to redefine “ethics” to mean something completely nonsensical.

  8. I think most people would agree that they have a right to live their entire life in a world that is much the same as when they were 10 years old. Change and, heck, dare I say it – progress, are unethical. Now get off my lawn.

  10. In other words, there’s the usual problem with the ethics of doing things on the Moon – no harm to anyone, humans or otherwise, except potentially on vague aesthetics grounds.

  11. You could radically disfigure half the Moon’s surface without causing an aesthetic upset, but I suspect the author would say I’m missing the point.

  12. The author comes across as a barking moonbat. The only thing unique about it is this is the first time I’ve seen the actual moon involved.

    Ummm… come to think of it, it’s not… I remember a big outcry from the whackjob left when NASA impacted a spent Centuar booster on the moon; shrieks ranging from it being an “unfriendly act” to being a danger to the moon.

  14. There are at least two problems in this paper (being charitable). What happens if we don’t access the Helium 3. In two billion years the sun expands and destroys the Moon, then what?

    The second is that the Moon would only be an interim source. The atmosphere of Neptune has a four billion year supply of He3.

    The moral of this story is NEVER let a philosophy student address a technical issue.

  15. This isn’t Dr. Milligan’s first paper on space. He has an even stranger one.

    http://www.academia.edu/4021521/Fear_of_Freedom_the_legacy_of_Arendt_and_Ballards_space_skepticism

    [[[Their kind of skepticism cannot then be answered by appeal to theremoval of vulnerabilities but the latter is precisely what they find threatening. Any promise of freedoms which encroaches too far upon our shared vulnerabilities, which promises too much, will then also risk removing the basis for a specifically human sense of community. ]]]

    I.e. Space faring is bad for humanity 🙂

    A debate between Dr. Milligan and Dr. Zubrin would be fun to watch…

    1. Any promise of freedoms which encroaches too far upon our shared vulnerabilities, which promises too much, will then also risk removing the basis for a specifically human sense of community.

      Note what he’s arguing for. Deliberate creation of common risk or threats in order to instill said human sense of community. A lot of authoritarian governments have done the same. For example, Jew-baiting is a popular and very traditional way to create a basis for a “specifically human sense of community”.

      It’s also worth noting that such common threat games are a frequently successful means for parasitic elites to remove public attention from themselves. For example, this Dr. Milligan apparently writes a lot about space-related ethics. Most of that will have no relevance during his lifetime. For example, he’ll never live to see any harm he causes by blocking constructive human efforts.

      Just maybe there is a better basis for such things? Instead of a common threat, how about a common purpose?

    2. What the fuck is a “shared vulnerability”? Is that some kind of 60’s communist hippy love bullshit?

      (Sorry, that set me off.)

      A human community is people having their private property they live on and peacefully go on about their lives without trespassing and bothering others on their private property. No vulnerability to others is required. In fact, being armed helps create a “sense of community” because no one can do anything bad to each other without risking their own health.

      Is that part of what drives gun control? Because then everyone isn’t “vulnerable” to each other?

  16. He is right to get his panties in a knot…fusion energy is only 10 years away! Before you know it evil mining moguls will be displacing the indigenous people and contaminating all the cheese with poisonous tailings.

  17. Just as a heads up, Milligan is working on a book about ethics and space. The mind boggles.

  18. Utilitarians might say that mining He3 from the moon will mean that we don’t need as many Nostromos full of methane from Titan.

  19. This guy is a misanthrope. The basis for his ethical value system is entirely anti-human and anti-life. The last-man test on which he bases his value of the Moon’s “integrity” underlines his misanthropic myopia – the last man doesn’t burn down forests not because the forest has intrinsic value but because it would be a waste of his own life to do so (and he might come up with a use for it some day).

    For the moon, it would actually make a lot of sense to deface it if you had the capability and you were a “last man” – little natural resurfacing on the moon means the monument you erect to our failed species would last a really long time, perhaps long enough to educate other sentient creatures of our failure – which would be due to philosophies like Milligan’s keeping us earthbound.

  20. Luna is a 9 billion acre asset waiting to happen, and it will happen. I would rather see property rights regime established first, rather than a treaty of the seas where anyone can just rape the moon anyplace they want to their hearts content.

  21. Why are people so focused on developing the side of the Moon that faces Earth? Is it because that is the only part they see and hence think about?

    1. Folks focus on the near-side because radio astronomers scream when anyone proposes anything for the far-side. They think it should belong the them 🙂

      http://iaaweb.org/iaa/Scientific%20Activity/lunarcopuos.pdf

      IAA proposes UN COPUOS to protect the central Moon farside
      against man-made radio pollution

      [[[Italian IAA Academician and physicist Claudio Maccone has brought this issue to Vienna, speaking before the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Maccone is proposing a radio-quiet zone on the farside that will guarantee radio astronomy and SETI a defined area in which human radio interference is impossible.]]]

      [[[Potential space operations could take place at all of these except, let’s
      hope, L2, which as you can see in the diagram is located so that a base there would flood the farside with interference. The first principle is then clear: Leave the L2 point alone. ]]]

      Imagine, stealing half a world full of rich resources from humanity for a lousy telescope or two. Talk about being greedy…

      If they really want a radio telescope free of interference just put it at the Sun-Earth L2 and shield it with a small NEO or wastes from lunar mining. But don’t take half a world away just for a cheap science project…

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