Helium 3 Options

[impala454]

I was watching some stuff on discovery last night about us going back to the moon, and they mentioned it looks like the moon would be a vast source of helium 3 (according to them, pretty much the most valuable material known to man at the moment). Basically they said sustained fusion reactors could be possible using helium 3 instead of hydrogen (because they shoot off way less damaging neutrons which destroy the reactor walls in hydrogen reactors). They mentioned that (in theory) 1 metric ton of helium 3 would be enough to power a city of 10 million for a year (100% clean energy, treehuggers). They also mentioned that it's estimated the moon has over 100 million tons of the stuff. So if we could come up with a cost effective way to mine the moon for this material we could have a great energy solution for a long time. The current cash value of the stuff as said in the program is $1 billion/ton, so I could see these missions paying for themselves at some point.

what do yall think? did anyone else see that show?

[impala454]

the explanation that was given, is that the sun gives off helium 3 as a gas, and it's carried via solar winds across the whole system. when it gets to earth it's deflected by our atmosphere, but the moon has none so the minerals on the face of the moon have absorbed it for billions of years, resulting in huge deposits of it.

edit: dunno about the gravity part, I'd seriously doubt it. we're talking 100 million tons vs the mass of the moon total, which (according to wiki) is 7.36x10^19 tons.

so:
100,000,000

vs

73,600,000,000,000,000,000

not really significant