The Chinese have made a significant new discovery on the Moon’s surface as a result of their Chang E5 sample return Mission. Chinese scientists have confirmed the discovery of a new mineral in the lunar regolith, a transparent Crystal that they have named Changi site. This makes China only the third country, after the United States and Russia, to discover a new rock type on the moon. Changi site is now the sixth unique mineral that is known to exist on the moon but has not yet been discovered on Earth. As a result, the Changi site’s discovery A small collection of lunar regolith (about 61 ounces of dust and rocks from the Moon’s surface) gathered by the Changi 5 Rover and returned to Earth in 2020. The Rover landed on the Moon’s Oceanus procellerum, which translates as “stormy ocean.”
This is a long, dark splotch on the moon that can be seen on the visible side’s northwest corner. This particular sample was taken near Mons Rumker, a previously volcanic area where the rock and soil are thought to be only 1.2 billion years old. Changi 5 dug with a mechanical scoop and a drill that could dig down two meters. NASA’s own sample return program. The Apollo crew landings in the 1970s discovered regolith that was much older, between 3.1 and 4.4 billion years old. What China discovered in that sample was a single particle of colorless transparent Crystal kind of like a diamond. The Changi site is only 10 microns across it’s a microscopic little speck of matter classified as a phosphate mineral and columnar Crystal the discovery has been cer. The Moon Crystal is cool and all, but the most important thing that China has discovered so far in their lunar sample is helium-3. This isn’t anything new; we’ve known about it for a long time; it does exist on Earth in very small amounts, but we’re pretty sure it’s abundant on the moon; it’s created by solar wind and cosmic radiation impacting the unprotected lunar surface; the moon lacks a magnetic shield to bounce off the radiation. It is unique in that it is the only known stable isotope of any element with more protons than neutrons. In theory, a nuclear fusion reaction involving deuterium and helium-3 would produce 164.3 megawatt hours of energy per gram of helium-3. It’s difficult to put that into context because the Hoover Dam produces 11 000 megawatt hours of energy per day, which means that 67 grams of helium-3 would match the daily output of a massive hydroelectric dam, which is obviously insane.
Furthermore, neither the helium-3 nor its reaction products are radioactive, so they wouldn’t turn the reactor components into radioactive nuclear waste, which we then have to deal with. The supply of helium-3 is very expensive, reaching over 17 500 US dollars for just one gram. It’s currently used in small-scale nuclear fusion experiments in medical imaging technology, and it’s also used in Neutron radiation detectors that scan for nuclear materials at US border crossings. The moon surface is thought to contain up to 1.5 million metric tons of helium-3, representing approximately one and a half quadrillion dollars in resources to support nuclear fusion. China claims to have calculations for the actual concentration based on what they found in their samples, but they refuse to release those numbers, so based on our estimates, you’d need to process 150 tons of regolith to harvest a single gram of helium-3, which is a lot of space mining and then you need to get it back to Earth, which is also problematic. We also wanted to let you know about our Discord server, which has over 1500 members and hosts regular events. China is currently conducting engine testing for their Long March 9 rocket, a super heavy lift vehicle that would compete with the SpaceX Starship in terms of mass to orbit and interplanetary travel. The Long March 9 will have a maximum payload capacity of 150 metric tons to low earth orbit, 50 tons to the moon, and 44 tons to Mars, according to current plans.
The first flight of the Rocket is expected in 2028 or 2029, and it is expected to be used for Chinese crude lunar missions sometime in the 2030s, so it’s not like China doesn’t have the capability to establish a mining operation on the moon, and they’ve already got the road map in place to get there after the Changi site and helium-3 announcements. The China National Space Administration has announced that the next three phase 4 lunar missions, Changi 6, 7, and 8, have received full state approval. They are expected to be available as early as 2024. Changi 6 will continue to explore the Moon’s far side and will be the first mission to return samples from there. Changi 7 will search for water ice for future human colonies near the moon’s South Pole. According to a statement from the director of China’s lunar Explorations program quote, Chang E8 will send robotic technology to the lunar surface to begin the construction of a basic structure for their International lunar research station a planned moon base in partnership with the Russian space program this is all scheduled to happen over the next 10 years. The goal of our mission is to lay the groundwork for the construction of a lunar station, so there are many technologies to be tackled, and we need to explore the energy of the Moon.
Great challenges await us, but with our previous experience and an excellent team, I believe we will succeed end quote. On the other hand, the goal of NASA’s Artemis program is to get people to live on the moon. Artemis is supposed to put humans back on the Moon’s surface in 2024 or 2025 or maybe 2026. I don’t know hopefully before 2028 but things aren’t going so well and maybe the SLS rocket will get back on track and everything will be great. But maybe it won’t and if it doesn’t then China basically has free reign on the moon for the foreseeable future unless someone else steps in. We know that SpaceX is sending their starship rocket to the moon.
