Helium-3 da

Oil Dependence Impact (Terrorism, :45)

Jade Rabbit will spark a new space race for helium-3.

Reynolds 13 writes⁸

On Saturday, a Chinese lunar probe made the first soft landing anyone's made on the moon since 1976. The Chang'e-3 probe means that China is one of only three countries -- joining the United States and the old Soviet Union -- to accomplish such a feat. The probe includes an unmanned rover named Yutu that will spend several months exploring "geological structure and surface substances and looking for natural resources.'' But will China try to claim the ground it explores? Possibly. Though the landing was a big deal in China, most of the rest of the world responded with a yawn. Moon landing? Been there, done that. But October Sky author Homer Hickam was more excited. He wondered on Twitter if China might want to make a territorial claim on the moon, noting that the area the lander is exploring may contain an abundance of Helium-3, a potentially valuable fusion energy fuel that is found only on the moon. According to former astronaut/geologist Harrison Schmitt, China "has made no secret" of its interest in Helium-3. Schmitt observes, "I would assume that this mission is both a geopolitical statement and a test of some hardware and software related to mining and processing of the lunar regolith." Followed by a mining claim, perhaps. Is that possible? Well, China seems pretty big on making territorial claims lately. And, really, there's not a lot to stop them. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty provides that "outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means." But that's not much of a barrier. First, the treaty only prohibits "national appropriation." If a Chinese company, instead of the Chinese government, were to stake a claim, it wouldn't apply. And, at any rate, China -- which didn't even join the treaty until 1983 -- can, like any other nation, withdraw at any time. All that's required under the treaty is to give a year's notice. So if the the Yutu rover finds something valuable, Chinese mining efforts, and possibly even territorial claims, might very well follow. And that would be a good thing. What's so good about it? Well, two things. First, there are American companies looking at doing business on the moon, too, and a Chinese venture would probably boost their prospects. More significantly, a Chinese claim might spur a new space race, which would speed development of the moon. The 1960s space race between the United States and the old Soviet Union saw rapid progress in space technology. We went from being unable to put people in Earth orbit, to landing men on the moon and returning them safely to earth, repeatedly, in less than a decade. It happened so fast because each nation was afraid the other would get there first. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty, in fact, was basically a deal to throw the contest out. Each nation was more afraid of being beaten than it was, really, anxious to win itself. As soon as the ink on the treaty was dry, space efforts began to dry up, too. That's one reason why no one has had a soft landing on the moon in almost 40 years -- and why it's been 41 years almost to the day since the last man, astronaut Eugene Cernan, stood on the moon. If, like me, you'd like to see a gold rush on the moon -- or, at least, a Helium-3 rush -- then a Chinese claim might be just the thing to get it started. Personally, I'm hoping Hickam's prediction is right.
Helium-3 development solves Middle East oil dependence.

D’Souza et al 6 write⁹

Energy is the most important driving force for powering industrial nations. In fact, a measure of a country’s industrialization is its annual energy consumption. Fossil fuels like coal, petroleum and natural gas are the chief means by which most nations get their energy. Because of the world’s increasing standards of living and its increased dependence on oil, fossil fuel amounts might not last longer than a few decades. Also with the world’s population expanding to almost 12 billion by the year 2050, our oil demand will also increase drastically. Oil has become a key issue in the political and economic affairs of many nations especially after the United States second war with Iraq. In such cases of crisis, the development of He-3 will alleviate the dependency on crude oil. Fossil fuels also release a lot of harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that have detrimental effects on the atmosphere, whereas the usage of He-3 fusion technology will be a great substitute to the fossil fuels as it doesn’t release any harmful byproducts. In addition to the non- polluting properties of He-3 fusion on Earth, the mining of He-3 from the Moon will not contaminate the Moon as the gases that are released during the extraction process (water and oxygen) aren’t harmful, and instead could be used for sustaining a lunar colony as outlined in the technical section. 74 The United States leads the research in He-3. In 2004, President Bush released his new vision of space exploration. He wants to complete the International Space Station by the year 2010. The completion of this project will greatly increase the working research on the lunar mining of He-3 as the astronauts can experiment on different techniques to extract He-3 from the Moon’s regolith. The International Space stations could be used a trade center for the distribution of He-3 for worldwide distribution. Another goal of the current White House administration is that NASA returns to the Moon by 2015 and to have a permanent living settlement for astronauts by 2020. President Bush has allocated 12 million dollars to the Moon Development Initiative. This initiative would help tremendously in the progress in the He-3 research if a permanent colony is established on the Moon (Hurtack, 2004). The developed world would no longer have to depend on the Middle East, where the most of the world’s fossil fuel reserves are located, for its energy supply. American scientists have already declared that the Moon could be the Persian Gulf of the present century. Two liters of He-3 would do the work of more than 1,000 tons of coal (Chowdhuri, 2004).

Oil dependence causes terrorism.

Reynolds 10 writes¹⁰

Terrorism is a reality of the modern world.  Terrorism is not the product of Islam; rather it is the manifestation of a particular political agenda. All terrorist groups in the Middle East share a hatred for Israel, but seldom have major attacks impacting the United States had much to do with our support of Israel. Instead, most of these groups’ grievances relate to the effects of oil policies.  Take, for example, the story of the nation’s most wanted terrorist—Osama bin Laden. As an insurgent against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Bin Laden was a de facto U.S. ally, and few dispute the claim that he received support from the CIA. Things changed in 1990 when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia came under threat. The Saudi royal family turned to the U.S. for assistance. Bin Laden offered to defend the country himself with his mujahedeen fighters but was turned down. After Saddam was expelled from Kuwait, the U.S. stationed as many as 20,000 troops in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other nations surrounding Iraq to contain any future threat.  The U.S. response and the ability to assemble a broad international coalition had nothing to do with sympathy for Kuwait or feigned outrage at Saddam Hussein’s audacity to invade a sovereign neighbor. The U.S. and the rest of the world were understandably frightened of the prospect of Saddam controlling over 38 percent of the world’s oil and all of the world’s swing capacity. If he were allowed to control Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, Saddam would have had nearly absolute control over world oil prices. The presence of troops began to breed resentment, especially in Saudi Arabia, where Islamic extremists were particularly insulted by the American presence so close to Islam’s holiest sites. It was the decision to keep U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia that many believe was the critical catalyst that would lead to the September 11 attacks. With U.S. troops set to be in the region seemingly indefinitely, hatred for America and the terrorist attacks that stem from that hatred are not likely to cease.

Terrorism is the most likely existential threat

Rhodes 9 writes¹¹

The response was very different among nuclear and national security experts when Indiana Republican Sen. Richard Lugar surveyed PDF them in 2005.

This group of 85 experts judged that the possibility of a WMD attack against a city or other target somewhere in the world is real and increasing over time. The median estimate of the risk of a nuclear attack somewhere in the world by 2010 was 10 percent. The risk of an attack by 2015 doubled to 20 percent median. There was strong, though not universal, agreement that a nuclear attack is more likely to be carried out by a terrorist organization than by a government. The group was split 45 to 55 percent on whether terrorists were more likely to obtain an intact working nuclear weapon or manufacture one after obtaining weapon-grade nuclear material. "The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is not just a security problem," Lugar wrote in the report's introduction. "It is the economic dilemma and the moral challenge of the current age. On September 11, 2001, the world witnessed the destructive potential of international terrorism. But the September 11 attacks do not come close to approximating the destruction that would be unleashed by a nuclear weapon. Weapons of mass destruction have made it possible for a small nation, or even a sub-national group, to kill as many innocent people in a day as national armies killed in months of fighting during World War II. "The bottom line is this," Lugar concluded: "For the foreseeable future, the United States and other nations will face an existential threat from the intersection of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction." It's paradoxical that a diminished threat of a superpower nuclear exchange should somehow have resulted in a world where the danger of at least a single nuclear explosion in a major city has increased (and that city is as likely, or likelier, to be Moscow as it is to be Washington or New York). We tend to think that a terrorist nuclear attack would lead us to drive for the elimination of nuclear weapons. I think the opposite case is at least equally likely: A terrorist nuclear attack would almost certainly be followed by a retaliatory nuclear strike on whatever country we believed to be sheltering the perpetrators. That response would surely initiat[ing]e a new round of nuclear armament and rearmament in the name of deterrence, however illogical. Think of how much 9/11 frightened us; think of how desperate our leaders were to prevent any further such attacks; think of the fact that we invaded and occupied a country, Iraq, that had nothing to do with those attacks in the name of sending a message.