An article on the Telegraph news website from February of this year noted a chill in the relationship between Russia and the United States, and hinted at the possibility of a new Cold War in space. Adrian Blomfield’s piece “Russia sees moon plot in NASA plans” reports that Russian officials claim their nation’s offers the the United States to participate in a cooperative Moon effort have been rebuffed.

Why?

Because. The ice on the Moon is better.

And why is that?

Though it would be easy to imagine a customer of a Star Wars cantina making this odd comment (in subtitles), the real reason is that, assuming there is any ice there, it should be, unlike earthly ice, chock-full of an isotope of helium called helium 3.

A plentiful supply of helium 3 — rare on Earth, but abundant in space — combined with an as-yet unperfected nuclear fusion technology, could potentially provide an efficient source of power and a meaningful, clean alternative to fossil fuels for an energy-hungry Earth.

The Russian claim is that the United States wants to control it.

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New book “Red Moon” reveals secret Soviet lunar program

LOS ANGELES, CA — October 4th, 2007 marks the 50th anniversary of Sputnik’s launch and the kick-off of the Moon Race between the United States and the Soviet Union. It’s also the launch date for Red Moon, a novel that tears away the veil of secrecy still shrouding the Cold War-era Soviet lunar program while spinning a gripping tale of international intrigue and space-based terror set in the near future.

Based on a decade’s worth of research by authors David S. Michaels and Daniel Brenton, Red Moon skillfully blends long-buried facts and informed speculation about the secret Soviet effort to land a man on the moon ahead of the Americans, which climaxed with the mission of Luna 15, a mysterious spacecraft that crashed into the lunar surface at virtually the same moment Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong took his historic “one small step” on July 20, 1969. This story in woven into an account of a future multinational Lunar mission arriving on the Sea of Crises in 2019, the year set in NASA’s Vision for Space Exploration for mankind’s return to the moon.

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