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Imagine that you’re stationed at a lunar colony, some decades in the future, when your moon monkey wrench breaks. You have two choices: wait for a replacement tool in the next cargo shipment a month away, or just make one on the spot. The do-it-yourself option recently got a boost, when researchers demonstrated the feasibility of 3-D custom parts printing using raw materials available on the moon.
The team, which included researchers from NASA and Washington State University, worked with a 3-D printer that melts powdered feedstock with lasers and then layers the melted powder into solid structures. Real lunar regolith is too precious to melt down, so they fed the printer with imitation lunar soil—a close chemical match to the real thing.
In the demo, the researchers produced cylinders of various sizes and reported that the melted regolith was free of cracks. The research appears in the Rapid Prototyping Journal. [Vamsi Krishna Balla et al., First demonstration on direct laser fabrication of lunar regolith parts]
The printed parts are still a bit rough around the edges, though—they resemble rusty lengths of iron. One of the team members remarked that “It doesn’t look fantastic, but you can make something out of it.”
—John Matson
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Helium-3 crisis today could easily finance a lunar elevator.
Helium-3 is abundant on the Moon but very rare on Earth
There is a critical shortage of He3 today, due to two factors:
1) increasing demand for neutrons detectors since 2001 for cargo screening at airport and seaports. There is also increasing demand at research facilities.
2) reduced supply due to decommissioning of nuclear warheads in USA and Russia
Reference: The Helium-3 Shortage: Supply, Demand, and Options for Congress Dana A. Shea - Specialist in Science and Technology Policy Daniel Morgan - Specialist in Science and Technology Policy December 22, 2010 Congressional Research Service 7-5700 www.crs.gov
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He-3 is currently selling at DOE auctions for $2000 per litre. Sales of He3 in 2008 were 80,000 liters. There is reason to think that the market could absorb 100,000 liters per year of He3, which would put potential revenues at $200 million per year. As of 2012 DOE is currently releasing 14,000 liters per year, and producing only 8,000 liters per year.
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2012/January/helium-3-isotopes-shortage-alternatives-neutron-detectors.asp
Regarding future trends of Helium-3 prices I have read various sources references, and I have performed additional research. I suggest you look especially closely at the US government documents from GAO and the CRS. For example,
GAO-11-472 from May 2011,
title: MANAGING CRITICAL ISOTOPES Weaknesses in DOE’s Management of Helium-3 Delayed the Federal Response to a Critical Supply Shortage
Table-3 in this document is a nice summary of Helium-3 price trends. As you can see the price is steadily increasing. The spot price has more than doubled in the last 3 years (2009 though 2011). The stockpiles of He-3 are shrinking rapidly, and there are only a few years of supply left in the current stockpiles, at which point the price could jump by orders of magnitude. In 5 years, I would not be at all surprised if the market price for He3 were $10,000 per litre.
Alternative terrestrial sources are scarce and non-viable. For example, extracting He3 from natural gas would cost $12,000 per liter.
If this were the only revenue source for a lunar elevator it would be ample to service the debt on $800 million to build it. Payback in just a few years