A New Gold Rush

When the Marco Beach Boys and Girls began, we were a tightly knit group of young women and men working at the big beach at the Marco Beach Hotel and Villas. We were all pioneers of a new island development, and almost everyone was from anywhere from Florida. Modern Marco was very eager and young at the time, or perhaps it was the youth of the beach crew, but it was a time when everyone was very excited about the future.

During the 1980s, parachute pants were the rage, along with BIG HAIR and movies that were featuring beautiful young heroines on the silver screen that could easily fill any role previously cast for male counterparts. There were international despots rattling sabers and burning flags. The British were sending ships across the globe to battle Argentina, and the Soviet Russians were rolling troops into Afghanistan to worry the world even further.

There were, however, high hopes on the big Marco beach mainly because how could there not be high hopes and optimism when living and pioneering a new world paradise? Another reason for high hopes and excitement for the future was the constant discussion of what if something truly exciting was in the works and we were all ready to watch it happen. Some things never change - especially now.

Whenever speculation would pop up about the future, everyone was always wondering when the space age would truly continue. There were Americans walking on the moon and riding around in little lunar cars only a decade earlier, and many of the Marco Beach Boys and Girls were wondering when true space exploration would begin again on the moon. The main answer was simple. There was no money and no lucrative revenue on the moon. Until now.

Now, in the 21st century, many nations are quietly looking back into the past to make plans for the near future. When American astronauts and remote Russian spacecraft brought back moon rocks from the lunar surface, it soon became apparent that the rare element of Helium-3 was abundant on the moon.

According to recent studies, Helium-3 could feasibly be the new quintessential fuel in a fusion reactor and provide energy on the earth for centuries. An element that could produce energy and power without the harmful side effects of nuclear radiation. A clean and limitless fuel. Another recent study confirms that mining the elusive element would be extremely profitable, and the energy that Helium-3 would produce could be 250 times greater than the energy needed to mine the lunar mineral and rocket it back to Earth.

Many scientists now believe the lunar gold that is Helium-3 could be worth beyond many billions for whoever should be the first to mine and transport the utopian isotope back from outer space. China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, India, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States are all planning to send lunar probes to the moon in the upcoming year.

The mounting evidence of a new space race is clear, and never, perhaps in the history of industry, has there been a greater quest to reach out and capture a goal that might not be so far out of reach during the next decade. There can be little doubt that a new space race is already underway and the stakes for success are beyond where humankind has had competition before.

Every nation with the ability and the wherewithal it seems is now searching and attempting surveys of the lunar surface to find the richest deposits of the unearthly helium isotope that might be the greatest mining project ever.

When gold became the newest discovery at a mill creek in Coloma, California, in 1848, news of the find spread like wildfire and soon over 300,000 would-be prospectors and miners began to rush to California to strike it rich.

Indeed, in the very near future, robot miners could be blasting off for the lunar surface aiming for the richest of the Helium-3 fields found by survey satellites. Soon, hoppers containing the precious helium mineral could be loaded under the blistering sunlight of a lunar day and during the deep freeze of darkness on the previously thought useless surface of the moon.

Robot malfunctions, onsite problem-solving, and repair necessities might soon bring human miners to the moon to ensure the ultra-valuable mineral does indeed fill schedule and load requirements without costly delays.

In the California gold rush, claim jumpers were infamous for their violence and desire to obtain the precious metal of the 1800s, and during the near future, can anyone imagine there would not be similar conflicts in the new frontier of lunar mining?

Perhaps when the demand for the new energy source becomes exponential there will be fortified mining towns under the surface of the moon and vast tunnel systems beneath the brutal heat and cold where a new kind of pioneer will be able to work, play, and fall in love in a shirtsleeve environment. A pressurized environment with grow lights and vegetable gardens, restaurants and recreation centers, and babies being born in the one-sixth gravity of the earth.

When Jules Verne wrote 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and H.G. Wells was the scribe for the First Men in the Moon, who could have imagined a lunar gold rush where money was the motivation - or perhaps - global power. Who could have imagined that when John F. Kennedy gave his world-famous speech about sending a man to the moon, the future might change for everyone on earth? Who could have imagined the first walks on the moon and the first moon rocks that were ever gathered could come home and truly drive the next space race and the not-so fanciful future of a New Gold Rush?