The lunar regolith would be mined for He-3 for use in nuclear fusion power plants on earth. This isotope is very rare on the earth but has been deposited in the lunar soil by billions of years of solar wind. Use of He-3 would make nuclear fusion conditions much easier to attain, removing one of the major roadblocks to obtaining nuclear fusion conditions in plasma containment reactors.

• 21 - Semenov, Yuri P Editor, Raketno-kosmicheskaya korporatsiya 'Energia' imeni S P Koroleva, Moscow, Russia, 1996.