Could Helium3 be what the USA needs ?

[wuliheron]

well the moon orbits around earth, so making a zip line is impossible

so there will always be a cost to collect He3

The idea is to send a rocket with a robot to the moon. When it lands, the robot assembles other robots who then build a solar powered mass launcher. You then reprogram to the robots to collect He3 and repair each other as necessary. With the solar powered robots and mass launcher the cost after that to collect the He3 are minimal.

 

[Howard]

The idea is to send a rocket with a robot to the moon. When it lands, the robot assembles other robots who then build a solar powered mass launcher. You then reprogram to the robots to collect He3 and repair each other as necessary. With the solar powered robots and mass launcher the cost after that to collect the He3 are minimal.

Why assemble other robots on the moon instead of just carrying ready robots? If you are thinking of saving mass, the mass will be the same. If you are thinking of saving volume... I don't think that would be anywhere near as important as the mass.

Are you planning to build stuff using Moon materials?

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Heh heh. I saw that movie, too, but had to think about it for a minute.

 

[wuliheron]

Why assemble other robots on the moon instead of just carrying ready robots? If you are thinking of saving mass, the mass will be the same. If you are thinking of saving volume... I don't think that would be anywhere near as important as the mass.

Are you planning to build stuff using Moon materials?

I'm not a rocket scientist so I'll take a wild guess and say:

Bigger Rocket = More Mass = More Expensive

Hence like shipping everywhere its often cheaper to ship things disassembled even if the mass remains the same.

Part of the idea is to also have the robots disassemble the rocket for parts for the mass launcher. Since the gravity is low enough you can hit a golf ball into orbit and you aren't trying to move tons of coal you don't need a really big mass launcher.