A REVIEW OF CONCEPTUAL DESIGNS OF ROBOTIC SPACE SYSTEMS FOR MINING OF HELIUM-3 NUCLEAR FUEL ON THE MOON
The paper discusses the advantages of using helium-3 as an environmentally friendly nuclear fuel. Since the Earth is lacking reserves of helium-3 that would be economically sound to develop, the paper discusses the feasibility of its mining from the lunar regolith. The paper discusses the process and a lunar mining system based on solar power with the use of thermal and electric power from a nuclear heat and power plant with a thermionic converter reactor.