Incredible friends. https://t.co/XkzuFgeCoR
— Victor Glover (@AstroVicGlover) March 27, 2022
https://twitter.com/AstroVicGlover/status/1507973711806271490
From 10/22/2014 ( premiere US TV series episode "Modern Family"::"Won't You Be Our Neighbor" ) To 3/26/2022 ( ) is 2712 days
2712 = 1356 + 1356
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 7/20/1969 ( my biological brother Thomas Reagan the United States Navy Commander circa 1969 was United States Apollo 11 Eagle spacecraft United States Navy astronaut landing and walking on the planet Earth's moon ) is 1356 days
From 3/30/2019 ( by me, Kerry Burgess, posted by me, previously referenced ) To 3/26/2022 ( ) is 1092 days
1092 = 546 + 546
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 5/2/1967 ( illustrated by me, Kerry Burgess, previously referenced ) is 546 days
From 1/17/1995 ( premiere US TV series "The Marker" ) To 3/26/2022 ( ) is 9930 days
9930 = 4965 + 4965
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 6/7/1979 ( Anne McClain ) is 4965 days
From 2/5/1939 ( from Wikipedia on the global-internetwork: According to famous psychic Jeane Dixon, a child was born "somewhere in the Middle East", who would "revolutionize the world and eventually unite all warring creeds and sects into one all-embracing faiths" [ superstitions, all ], and who would bring peace on Earth by 1999. The prediction, which did not come true as scheduled, was published in A Gift of Prophecy, the 1965 biography of Dixon ) To 6/29/1995 ( the Mir space station docking of the United States space shuttle Atlantis orbiter vehicle mission STS-71 includes me Kerry Wayne Burgess the United States Marine Corps officer and United States STS-71 pilot astronaut and my 3rd official United States of America National Aeronautics Space Administration orbital flight of 4 overall ) is 20598 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 3/26/2022 ( ) is 20598 days
From 11/26/1931 ( Harold Urey discovers deuterium ) To 4/18/1988 ( as me, Kerry Burgess, while enlisted paygrade E-5, designated Petty Officer Second Class Fire Controlman (FC2), from my official enlisted United States Navy records: during USA Armed Forces Expeditionary Operation Earnest Will with my personal participation and commendation - CF-division, Missile Plot - guided-missiles Fire Control Computer Complex (UNIVAC digital-computers Mk152 Terrier System for, primarily, SM2-ER {Extended Range} Standard Missiles ordnance) - aboard the USS Wainwright CG-28 US Navy the United States Operation Praying Mantis ) is 20598 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 3/26/2022 ( ) is 20598 days
https://twitter.com/AstroVicGlover/status/1507973711806271490
Victor Glover
@AstroVicGlover
Regular Person, @USNavy Captain and @NASA Astronaut. Back on Earth after living and working on the @Space_Station as pilot of the @SpaceX Crew-1 Mission!
Incredible friends.
11:52 PM Mar 26, 2022
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1934/urey/facts/
The Nobel Prize
Harold Clayton Urey
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1934
Born: 29 April 1893, Walkerton, IN, USA
Died: 5 January 1981, La Jolla, CA, USA
Affiliation at the time of the award: Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
Prize motivation: "for his discovery of heavy hydrogen."
Work
Elements occur as various isotopes, variations of elements with different atomic weights. Harold Urey wondered if the smallest atom, hydrogen, had different isotopes, and he calculated how they ought to be constituted if that were the case. By distilling liquid hydrogen, a hydrogen isotope was extracted in 1932 that was twice as heavy as regular hydrogen. It was called deuterium. Water that contains deuterium, so-called heavy water, proved to have other chemical properties that differed from regular water, and in various ways deuterium became significant in nuclear technology.
https://scitechdaily.com/science-made-simple-what-is-deuterium-tritium-fusion-reactor-fuel/
SciTechDaily
Science Made Simple: What Is Deuterium-Tritium Fusion Reactor Fuel?
By U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY JANUARY 22, 2022
Fusion energy has the potential to supply safe, clean, and nearly limitless power. Although fusion reactions can occur for light nuclei weighting less than iron, most elements will not fuse unless they are in the interior of a star. To create burning plasmas in experimental fusion power reactors such as tokamaks and stellarators, scientists seek a fuel that is relatively easy to produce, store, and bring to fusion. The current best bet for fusion reactors is deuterium-tritium fuel. This fuel reaches fusion conditions at lower temperatures compared to other elements and releases more energy than other fusion reactions.
Deuterium and tritium are isotopes of hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe. Whereas all isotopes of hydrogen have one proton, deuterium also has one neutron and tritium has two neutrons, so their ion masses are heavier than protium, the isotope of hydrogen with no neutrons. When deuterium and tritium fuse, they create a helium nucleus, which has two protons and two neutrons. The reaction releases an energetic neutron. Fusion power plants would convert energy released from fusion reactions into electricity to power our homes, businesses, and other needs.
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/540856-solving-the-climate-and-energy-crises-mine-the-moons-helium-3/
The Hill
Solving the climate and energy crises: Mine the Moon’s helium-3?
BY MARK WHITTINGTON, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 02/28/21 11:00 AM ET
Recently, U.S. Nuclear Corp. and Solar System Resources Corporation signed a letter of intent that will either change the history of the world or be just a footnote in humanity’s quest to develop clean, abundant sources of energy.
Solar System Resources has agreed to provide 500 kilograms of helium-3 mined from the Moon to U.S. Nuclear Corp. in the 2028-2032 timeframe.
According to a paper published by Jeff Bonde and Anthony Tortorello, helium-3 is an isotope that has been deposited in lunar soil over billions of years by solar wind. Roughly 1.1 million metric tons of the isotope exists on the Moon down to a depth of several meters. Twenty-five metric tons of helium-3, about a quarter of the cargo capacity of a SpaceX Starship, would suffice to fuel all the power needs of the United States for a year.
The announcement does not reveal how Solar System Resource proposes to mine the helium-3. The company’s website is very heavy on breathtakingly inspirational verbiage and light on how it intends to raise the money and develop the technology to mine the solar system’s resources. However, the paper suggests that a rover could scoop up lunar regolith, separate helium-3 along with oxygen and hydrogen, store them and eject the processed lunar soil. The gasses would be taken back to a lunar base where the oxygen and hydrogen would be put to good use and the helium-3 stored for later export to Earth.
The announcement also does not reveal what U.S. Nuclear Corp. intends to do with the helium-3 once it takes delivery. The company, which builds radiation detection devices, has a subsidiary, Magneto-Inertial Fusion Technology, Inc., that is researching a fusion technology called staged Z-pinch. This would create a fusion reaction long enough and sustained enough to become a power source. Presumably, an abundant store of helium-3 could be an asset for those experiments.
Fusion using helium-3 has advantages and disadvantages over using deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen and tritium, another isotope of hydrogen.
Deuterium and tritium fusion releases radioactive neutrons that will damage and weaken the containment vessel. Periodically, a fusion reactor using this method would have to be taken offline for decontamination. Tritium is also radioactive, making its handling difficult and dangerous. A deuterium and helium-3 fusion creates helium and charged protons as byproducts and few or no radioactive particles.
The main disadvantage of fusion using helium-3 is that it would take a far greater amount of energy to achieve it than the conventional deuterium and tritium variety. According to Open Mind, Frank Close, a physicist at the University of Oxford, regards fusion using helium-3 as “moonshine.” Close suggests that a deuterium and helium-3 fusion will still produce some radioactive neutrons.
Gerald Kulcinski, director of the Fusion Technology Institute at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, disagrees. Close’s objection is based on using conventional fusion technology. The Fusion Technology Institute has achieved some progress in minimizing radioactive neutron production using different technology.
Helium-3 fusion is an even more promising technology, albeit a more difficult and complicated one to develop. The consensus seems to be that such reactors will not be achieved for some decades, say mid-century.
No one can guarantee that enough helium-3 will be mined from the Moon to jump-start serious development of technology using the isotope as a fusion fuel in the foreseeable future. There is no guarantee that such a development will see practical results anytime soon. However, the effort would be well worth pursuing, with substantial money and effort deployed behind it. If not the two aforementioned companies, someone should undertake the effort. Fusion using helium-3 as fuel would change the world in profoundly beneficial ways.
The great problem civilization faces is access to clean, affordable and reliable energy. Recent events in Texas prove that not having energy, even for a few days, can be catastrophic. At the same time, humankind needs sources of energy that do not harm the environment, especially by emitting greenhouse gasses.
It appears that humankind is returning to the Moon, at long last. President Trump started the Artemis Project. President Biden has thrown his support behind the effort. There are many reasons to return to the Moon, from science, to commerce, to soft political power. Solving the decades-long energy crisis could be the singular benefit for expanding human activity to Earth’s nearest neighbor.
- posted by me, Kerry Burgess 07:41 AM Pacific-time USA Thursday 04/21/2022
