For what purpose?
Without a good reason, once more going to the moon is pure waste.
HE3
Helium-3 (He-3) is a light, non-radioactive isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron. It is rare on Earth, and is 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 from 0.01 ppm to 0.05 ppm is helium-3).[1] [2]
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).[3] 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.[4] The presence of helium-3 in underground gas deposits implied that it either did not decay or had an extremely long half-life compatible with a primordial isotope.
Helium-3 is proposed as a second-generation fusion fuel for fusion power uses. Tritium, with a 12-year half-life, decays into helium-3, which can be recovered. Irradiation of lithium in a nuclear reactor — either a fusion or fission reactor — can also produce tritium, and thus (after decay) helium-3.
Potatoes, tomatoes, and corn are new world foods. They pretty much revolutionized the diet of the world. No one knew that they existed before some Spaniards stumbled on them in central and south america.
Not to mention my favorites: chocolate and vanilla.
The point is you don't know what you are going to find over the horizon. But even the act of applying engineering to new and different challenges yields massive, life-changing returns.
And it costs nothing next to the gargantuan sums wasted on great society programs.
You Luddites are piss poor Americans.
“Without a good reason, once more going to the moon is pure waste.”
The nations that lead on the frontiers, dictate the course of human history.
Long term survival of the species.
Training ground for exploration and colonization of the solar system.
Exploit lunar energy... helium 3
We are blessed with a natural satellite only three days from home that now we learn has water. Water can be turned into fuel and oxygen.
Teh moon screams at us each time it is in the night sky...
what the hell are you waiting for!