Not Just for Helium-3: Why Does China Want to Develop the Moon First?

Not Just for Helium-3: Why China Is Leading the Charge to Develop the Moon

China has become a dominant force in space exploration with an ambitious space program.

Author: Dmitry Kapustyan

Image: China's "Chang'e-5" lunar probe on the lunar surface.

With Earth becoming increasingly crowded, Chinese people are striving to develop lunar resources as soon as possible. China's lunar exploration program continues to advance, demonstrating its ambition to become a global leader in space. As Grey Dinamics stated, the expansion of this plan goes beyond pure scientific research and targets geopolitical and economic domains.

Since successfully achieving a soft landing on the far side of the moon and collecting samples, China has taken the lead in lunar exploration. Ouyang Ziyuan, a famous geochemist and science advisor to China's lunar exploration project, emphasized many times that the moon could become a key new source of energy and resources for sustainable human development.

Academician Ouyang pointed out that the first country to successfully develop lunar resources will gain significant competitive advantages on the global stage – and it is clear that China aims to be this "first country."

The core of China's space strategy lies in the "Chang'e" series missions and the construction plan for the International Lunar Research Station (although the station will be co-built with Russia).

The "Chang'e Eight" mission, scheduled for launch in 2028, will lay the foundation for building a permanent manned base on the moon, including the ambitious goal of landing Chinese astronauts on the moon by 2030.

The Sino-Russian joint lunar station, based on a lunar nuclear power plant, poses a challenge to America's space leadership. In 2024, the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced a cooperation plan with the goal of building a lunar nuclear reactor by 2035.

China's lunar exploration program also aims to obtain strategic resources such as helium-3 and rare earth elements, which may provide security for China's future energy and technological dominance.

According to data from the University of Wisconsin's Thermonuclear Technology Institute, 40 grams of helium-3 contains potential energy equivalent to 5,000 tons of coal – making it the fuel of the future.

Chinese geologists discovered a mineral called "Chang'e Stone," containing rare helium-3 isotopes, when analyzing lunar soil samples. Clearly, this provides additional momentum for accelerating lunar development.

In addition, helium-3 is also a key material for quantum computers – these computers will eventually replace the "traditional" computers we have been accustomed to over the past half-century.

If successfully mined and applied in nuclear fusion, helium-3 can cool quantum computing devices to the required temperature (quantum computers need to operate at extremely low temperatures).

Grey Dinamics noted: When China achieves large-scale mining of helium-3 on the moon, it will gain a technical advantage that the United States cannot surpass – let alone other countries.

After all, the first country to truly build a large-scale, high-performance quantum computer will become a superpower in the 21st century and even the 22nd century. This is why China is actively competing for lunar resources.

However, researchers' focus on the moon is not limited to helium-3. The rare earth minerals extracted from lunar mining (though China currently controls nearly two-thirds of the world's rare earth reserves – of course, temporarily limited to terrestrial resources) can be widely used in cutting-edge technology fields:

From quantum computers, electronic devices, electric vehicles to renewable energy, there is no end to their applications. Not to mention the defense sector: without rare earth minerals, modern fighter jets, drones, submarines, and aircraft carriers cannot be produced.

Of course, risks cannot be ignored: the extraction and refining technology for helium-3 still needs development – Chinese scientists are working on this, but it is currently limited to Earth laboratories and has not yet been carried out on lunar stations.

In addition, China needs to conduct deeper research on the far side of the moon, deploying a network of observation satellites here to accurately locate future mineral extraction areas. Clearly, this is not a task for a few years, but a long-term project spanning decades – but isn't global dominance worth such an investment?

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7517224179851166227/

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