Do more to win space energy and arms races, lunar scientist says

China should develop probes to explore the moon and the planets to help alleviate its energy crisis and advance its strategic military interests, the 'father of the Chang'e lunar probe' said yesterday.

The chief scientist of the lunar probe project, Ouyang Ziyuan , said in a lecture in Hong Kong that setting up an observation station on the moon was an important objective because it could help China find sustainable energy resources.

He said scientists had so far found two important resources on the moon: solar energy and helium-3, both of which were sustainable and clean energies.

'We could set up a solar energy collection centre on the moon because half of it is constantly in the sun,' Professor Ouyang said. '[And] scientists estimate that there are 10 million to 50 million tonnes of helium-3 on the moon but just 500kg on Earth.'

Professor Ouyang said helium-3 would be an important energy source for nuclear weapons and power generation and that 10 tonnes would been enough to meet China's estimated total energy needs for 50 years.

'There is enough helium-3 on the moon for people on the Earth to use for tens of thousands of years,' he said. 'However, if the US or other countries explored the moon first, would they share the energy with China?'

He said the moon's energy resources were not owned by anyone and whoever explored it first would have the priority in exploiting it.