In October 2014, China’s Chang’e 5-T1 lunar probe, known as Xiaofei or Little Flyer, successfully completed an orbit around the Moon. This was the first time that a trip around the Moon and back of this sort had been made since the USA and Russian trips in the 1970s. The Little flyer is a precursor to Chang’e 5 which will bring back lunar soil (regolith) containing the nuclear fuel helium-3 that can be used for baseload energy production and the next generation of nuclear weapons.
The Little Flyer mission lasted eight days and its primary objective was to conduct atmospheric re-entry tests on the Chang’e 5 capsule design which will be launched by 2017. The destination on the lunar surface for Chang’e 5, like that of the Yutu Jade Rabbit rover, is the Mare Imbrium also known as the Sea of Rains, one of the vast lunar crater seas visible from Earth and a known repository of high concentrations of helium-3. This now puts China strongly in the lead in the secret space race between states to secure helium-3, which has one of the highest known energy return on investment ratios while also being a fourth-generation nuclear weapons fuel.
In the words of former president of India Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, “The Moon contains 10 times more energy in the form of helium-3 than all the fossil fuels on the earth.”
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