 a discovery. Six trips to the lunar surface reveal much about our closest celestial neighbor and changed forever the way we view our own planet. Today NASA is looking towards returning to the moon. A permanent lunar base would complement space station freedom and provide a springboard for manned missions to Mars. And if researchers at NASA's Center for the Commercial Development of Space in Wisconsin are successful, the first lunar settlers will also be miners. Actually this large automated vehicle would do most of the work. Processing the moon's rocks and soil to remove a potentially valuable product. Helium-3. Just 25 metric tons of this rare isotope, roughly the capacity of the shuttle cargo bay, could provide enough energy to generate all the electricity used in this country in an entire year. Helium-3 is produced by fusion reactions in the sun and carried through space by the solar wind. Earth's atmosphere shields us from the solar wind, but it has been depositing Helium-3 on the moon for more than a billion years. Former Senator Jack Schmidt was part of the Apollo 17 mission which marked our last, or as he likes to say, our most recent journey to the lunar surface. We can't always use fossil fuels for the production of electricity. There are many environmental reasons why you don't want to do that. One of the most popular now, of course, is the addition of CO2 to the atmosphere. We don't need to panic, but we ought to be making those kinds of research and development plans that we have an alternative to coal and other fossil fuels in the not too distant future. Studies indicate that the amount of radioactivity in a device like this generating energy from Helium-3 will be one millionth less than in nuclear systems used today. And no greenhouse gases, acid rain, or solid wastes will result. The proposed mining system will be equally kind to the lunar environment. Once Helium-3 has been boiled off, the untainted rocks and soil will return to the surface, leaving it essentially unblemished. The process should also produce a number of by-products, including water, which will be of great value to a lunar colony. And according to Jerry Kulsinski, a professor at the University of Wisconsin and member of the NASA Commercial Development Team, current oil prices make Helium-3 an even more attractive alternative. At today's prices, Helium-3 would be worth four billion dollars a ton, which would make a shuttle load worth about a hundred billion dollars. And that's enough, I think, for any businessman to figure out a way to make a profit. Helium-3 mining, using the moon's resources to meet future energy requirements on earth.