What resources does the moon offer us and why are the major nations planning to return to the moon?

Answer 1

Helium-3 (He-3) is a light, non-radioactive isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron, rare on Earth, sought for use in nuclear fusion research. The abundance of helium-3 is thought to be greater on the Moon (embedded in the upper layer of regolith by the solar wind over billions of years) and the solar system's gas giants (left over from the original solar nebula), though still low in quantity (28 ppm of lunar regolith is helium-4 and 0.01 ppm is helium-3).[1] It is proposed to be used as a second-generation fusion power source.

The helion, the nucleus of a helium-3 atom, consists of two protons but only one neutron, in contrast to two neutrons in ordinary helium. Its existence was first proposed in 1934 by the Australian nuclear physicist Mark Oliphant while based at Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory, in an experiment in which fast deuterons were reacted with other deuteron targets (the first demonstration of nuclear fusion). Helium-3, as an isotope, was postulated to be radioactive, until helions from it were accidentally identified as a trace "contaminant" in a sample of natural helium (which is mostly helium-4) from a gas well, by Luis W. Alvarez and Robert Cornog in a cyclotron experiment at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in 1939. [2]

Iron-nickel meteorites found on the surface of the moon consist of iron, nickel, gold, and platinum group metals. Platinum group metals such as platinum and rhodium are rare and two uses include crafting jewelry and in the manufacture of catalytic converters used in automobiles. Platinum and rhodium are usually worth almost twice as much as gold per troy ounce, and in the first half of 2008 the price of rhodium rose to $10,000 USD per troy ounce, worth almost eight times as much as gold.

Lunar Gas Station - There is interest in constructing a lunar base for fueling spacecraft. It is one-tenth the cost of fuel to launch spacecraft from low-Earth orbit than from the surface of the Earth. A "lunar gas station" would make this possible. A Texas firm, Austin's Stone Aerospace, Inc., has drawn-up plans to explore the Shackleton crater on the moon for resources such as water, oxygen and hydrogen, the key ingredients of rocket fuel and of life-support. They plan to be open for business by year 2015.