What Could Possibly Be Worth $30,000 a Gram?

It’s 200 times more expensive than cocaine.

It’s 300 times more expensive than heroin.

It’s 28,571 times more valuable than silver.

And it’s 278 times more valuable than gold.

It’s even more valuable than diamonds, yet almost no one has heard about it.

Helium-3 – a stable isotope of helium that has two protons and one neutron – is a critical isotope for quantum computing.

And more importantly, it’s the future of limitless clean energy.

The problem with helium-3 is that it is extremely rare on Earth. That’s why it’s so valuable.  Helium-3 makes up only 0.0000137% of all helium isotopes in the atmosphere and is even rarer in the Earth’s crust.

But the moon is a different story.

Source:  Interlune

Earth’s sole natural satellite has been bombarded by the Sun’s solar wind for billions of years, resulting in somewhere between 1 million and 3 million tons of helium-3 waiting conveniently in the top few meters of the lunar regolith.

Earth’s magnetosphere deflects the solar wind, which is why helium-3 is so rare on Earth. But the moon doesn’t have that protection.

Natural abundance, just waiting to be excavated, and it will bring about a clean energy revolution never seen before on Earth.

And I know just the company that is going to do it.

A Lunar Harvest

Yesterday, a Seattle-based space mining company announced a first-of-its-kind deal representing the beginning of a much larger space economy.

Interlune, whose mission is to excavate the helium-3 isotope from lunar regolith, signed a deal with Maybell Quantum Industries to supply thousands of liters of helium-3 from the Moon to be delivered to Earth between 2029 and 2035.

As crazy as it sounds, the deal makes perfect sense.  The cost of helium-3 to the quantum computing and nuclear fusion industry is so expensive on Earth that it actually makes more economic sense to send an excavator to the lunar surface, harvest helium-3, and return it to Earth.

Thanks to SpaceX and its reusable rocket technology, the costs to launch payloads to Earth’s orbit and beyond have dropped so dramatically that it makes Interlune’s business economically feasible.

Announced at the same time as Interlune’s deal with Maybell was a deal with industrial equipment manufacturer Vermeer.  The two companies revealed a full-scale prototype of the future Interlune lunar excavator.

Interlune’s excavator | Source:  Interlune

Interlune’s Harvester is designed to dig up and ingest 100 metric tons of lunar regolith per hour and return it to the Moon’s surface after the helium-3 has been extracted.

The above excavator is a terrestrial prototype of what will be incorporated into Interlune’s harvesting machinery, designed for continuous operation on the lunar surface.

Interlune’s Lunar Harvester | Source:  Interlune

Lunar harvesting fields will likely look something like the image below, with lunar solar arrays powering batteries to charge the Interlune Harvester.

Source:  Interlune

Topping the major announcements from Interlune was a third deal with the U.S. Department of Energy Isotope Program, which has agreed to purchase at least 3 liters of helium-3 from Interlune at roughly today’s market price.

That will most certainly be a profitable multimillion-dollar deal for Interlune.

Perfect Timing

Inking these two commercial deals for helium-3 will almost certainly result in a large Series A funding round to help finalize the engineering development of the Harvester and commission its first excavation mission to the lunar surface.

Quantum computing – specifically the kind of quantum computing that requires dilution refrigerators that enable temperatures colder than space – and nuclear fusion reactors will be the two largest markets for helium-3.

Interlune’s timing couldn’t be better.  Both the quantum computing and the nuclear fusion industries are humming right now.  Quantum computing is already seeing widespread early commercial adoption of leading quantum computers.

And several leading nuclear fusion companies are preparing their commercial prototype nuclear fusion reactors for testing and ultimately net energy output fusion reactors.

Interlune’s timing is a sign that these industries are developing at a pace that requires a supply chain to support exponential growth.  And Interlune will be supplying the most important “input” required for powerful quantum computers and limitless, cheap, clean energy.

What a fantastic mission, which will also be a fantastic business.

And now it’s very clear why so many countries want to establish a permanent presence on the Moon.

One of India’s primary goals of its 2019 Chandrayaan-2 mission to the Moon was to search for and analyze helium-3.  And the same is true of China’s 2020 Chang’e 5 lunar mission, which was a success.

Is this a coincidence?  No way.

This is a race for the most expensive and most valuable isotope on Earth, which just happens to reside in abundance on the Moon.

Jeff