interesting view

What everyone seems to be clueless about is the development of fusion nuclear plants, which a prototype is being designed and will be built in France. It is supported by a consrium of gevernments including the US, Japan, Europeans and also China.

Fusion nuclear plants use helium as fuel rather than radioactive uranium and unlike conventional nuke plants, there is no waste, the fuel is totally consumed in the process. Sounds too good to be true, but it is. The big problem is that there is only a handful of helium available on the planet. But it is available in great quantities on the moon because, helium which comes from dust that the sun throws off is collected on the moon but due to the earth's atmosphere, very little makes it through.

This actually has been know for a long time by scientists and that is why when they designed the shuttle fleet it was to be able to transport people, equipment and materials to the space stations orbiting the earth and the moon and then from the space stations transport them via lunar modules. There would ahve to be accomodation camps on the moon for people to operate the plant which would process moon dust into helium and then transport it to the lunar orbiting space station and then onward to planet earth. It is said that one shuttle load of helium, equivalent to about a railroad boxcar, can power 40 to 50 nuclear fusion plants across the US for a year which is about the number of electrical plants that it takes to supply the US with electrical power.

But looking at the shuttle program over the last thirty years, it has been an abyssmal failure compared to the stunning success that the US Space program enjoyed in the 1960's when under the leadership of President Kennedy, he boldly challenged the space agency and Amwerica to land a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade. We have sorely been without such leadership and that is the underlying problem.

These fusion plants would eliminate the need for all coal and the oil and gas used for electrical generating plants. The facilities to build and maintain the lunar plant and transport systems can be located in those areas that supply coal and the people in the region would have opportunity to be educated and trained to work in this new industry.

The plants can be designed and built after the prototype is designed, tested and proven. The lunar transport system can be designed and built from now. It can probably be in operation by 2020 with full build-out by 2030. It would of course have to be an international consortium to build and operate to avoid a star wars scenario for control.