Henrietta wrote:Master Gunner wrote:I'm looking for a new background image for my laptop. What insanely large image do you think would make for a cool background? (Other than the Eta Carinae Nebula, that I still use on my desktop).
The Astronomy Picture of the Day archives run back to 1995; you should be able to find something you like.
ETA: I'm currently using this one.
The European Southern Observatory has a lot big images. I got the images at the start of the thread there.
Going to the start of the APOD archives is trip back in time to when the
Elomin Sha wrote:What's your stance on erotic Star Trek Fan Fiction?
I am pro erotic Star Trek Fan Fiction.
Lord Hosk wrote:What about the possibility of He-3 mining on the dark side of the moon which could yield significant quantities. While metals are far to expensive to bring back I have heard that as He-3 is extremely rare on earth as nuclear technology advances it takes the cost to over $2000 per L which make it viable.
Fusion power is upper there with Moon bases on being twenty years in the future for the last sixty years. While using helium-3 does have the advantage of producing far fewer neutrons than using using deuterium and/or tritium as fuel it does require a much higher fusion temperature.
Even though helium-3 is much more common on the Moon than on the Earth it is still quite rare. You would have to process over a hundred million tonnes of Moon rocks to get a tonne of helium-3; to supply all the United States' electrical needs would require twenty tonnes a year. To supply a significant fraction of the world's electricity would require a ten billion tonnes of Moon rocks to be mined and processed, a quantity on par with the amount of coal produced globally each year.
As a low neutron fusion fuel boron-11 produces even fewer neutrons and is much more common on Earth (boron-11 makes up eighty percent of naturally occurring boron; we all ready produce over a million tonnes a year of boron trioxide) boron-11 is likely a better fuel than helium-3.
Having said all that helium-3 is about the only thing that there is more of on the Moon than on Earth and if its price was high enough it would be worth going to the Moon to get it. However if it was that expensive we would most likely use some other, cheaper form of power.