Mining lunar Helium-3

The desire for helium-3 fusion energy is a noble one, but the figures let such dreamers down. You would have to excavate a volume of regolith kilometres long on each side and ten centimetres deep. All this material would have to be heated to about 700°C, causing the helium and all other volatiles to be released. If you could process a tonne every minute, it would take at least 150 days. Then you would have to separate the helium-3 from the far more abundant helium-4. (You would get 1 kilogram of helium-3 for every 2500 kilograms of helium-4.) This could be achieved by cooling it to very low temperatures, where it will fractionate because the two isotopes have different boiling points. In the process nitrogen, hydrogen, and carbon would be released, which would be very useful for a lunar colony. Given all this, exploiting helium-3 is a long way off and certainly not something that will happen within the next 50 years. But if we do ultimately achieve it, lunar helium-3 could power human civilisation at its current level of energy consumption for about a thousand years.

- David Whitehouse, Space 2069: After Apollo - Back to the Moon, to Mars, and Beyond, London, 2020, p.92

See also:

Blog: When We Left Earth, 26 October 2009

And they say, "See how the glass is raised?"

Thursday music corner: Irish singer-songwriter Sinead O'Connor, who died yesterday aged 56, was an outsider in the music scene who embraced contrarian activism and rejected the conformity of the pop stardom that was her due after the world-straddling success of her cover of Prince's Nothing Compares 2 U in 1990. A troubled upbringing and lifelong struggles with mental health and substances affected her career, but her innate talent, fearless inventiveness and broad musical interests kept her work both relevant and challenging throughout her career. She released 10 studio albums over her career. In 2021 she published a successful memoir, Rememberings, and the following year Kathryn Ferguson's documentary Nothing Compares captured O'Connor's mercurial genius and her ambivalence to the trappings of fame. Film reviewer Peter Bradshaw wrote:

Above everything, O’Connor blasphemed against the ethos of success, a transgression which appalled the music world in 1992 as much as I suspect it would astonish the players of today. O’Connor had it all, she had stadium-level success within reach and threw it away by speaking out in ways that U2, say, would never dare. 

Mandinka was the second single released from O'Connor's debut album, The Lion & the Cobra, in 1987. The song reached number 6 in Ireland, and hit the top 20 in the UK and New Zealand. At her last New Zealand performance in 2015, O'Connor couldn't finish performing her biggest hit because she was distracted by a duck quacking and dissolved into fits of laughter.

Sinead O'Connor - Mandinka (1987)

See also:

Music: Sinead O'Connor - Fire On Babylon (1994)

Music: Peter Gabriel & Sinead O'Connor - Blood Of Eden (1992) 

Music: Sinead O'Connor - Daddy I'm Fine (2000) 

Your big ideas are useless to me now

Thursday music corner: Scottish-born, American-raised David Byrne (b.1952) co-founded the hugely influential alternative band Talking Heads in 1975. The band released eight albums between 1977 and 1988, with the most successful being 1985's Little Creatures, which was certified double platinum in America. After an early solo project with former Roxy Music musician and producer Brian Eno in 1981, he began releasing solo albums in 1989 with Rei Momo, experimenting with world music influences. Byrne has released 10 solo studio albums - including two with Eno and one with St Vincent - and plenty of soundtrack work. (He shared an Academy Award for the score of 1987 epic The Last Emperor). His most recent solo effort was the popular American Utopia (2018). 

The sparky Dance on Vaseline is a highlight of Byrne's 1997 solo album Feelings, which was a collaboration with British band Morcheeba. 

David Byrne - Dance on Vaseline (1997)  

See also:

Music: David Byrne - Every Day is a Miracle (live, 2019)

Music: David Byrne & Brian Eno - Mea Culpa (1981)

Music: David Byrne & St Vincent - Who (2012)

When your love comes tumblin' down you wear a good man out

Thursday music corner: Arkansas-born saxophonist and bandleader Louis Jordan (1908-75) was one of the leading exponents of the subgenre known as 'jump blues', fast-paced jazz-pop hybrid songs, often featuring humorous lyrics. He is credited as being one of the pioneers and popularisers of 20th century rhythm and blues music. Among his many writing credits are Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby (co-written with Billy Austin), and he and his band were the first to release Five Guys Named Moe. 

Messy Bessy was a 1954 single release by Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five. Written by Jon Hendricks, it was the 22nd Jordan single of that prolific year; he went on to release a total of 32 singles in 1954. 

Louis Jordan - Messy Bessy (1954)

See also:

Music: Louis Jordan - Saturday Night Fish Fry Pts. 1&2 (1949)

Music: Calvin Bose & His Allstars - Safronia B (1950)

Music: Dave Bartholomew - Jump Children (1954)

What not to say in China

I soon found that my Mandarin was about the level of a toddler's. And looking Chinese enough in the face to be occasionally presumed a local, I must have given off the impression of being an enormous child, or some simple giant of lore. I saved myself from the worst embarrassments for the most part. At one dinner I checked with [his translator] Angela if my word for 'Miss' was correct for getting the waitress's attention. She was shocked by what I'd said. 'No, no, no, no, no! You must never say that!' I had come extremely close to shouting 'Oi! You old prostitute!" across the restaurant.

- Phil Wang, Sidesplitter, London, 2022

I don't know why, but it feels so good

Thursday music corner: The Spelling Mistakes were a short-lived four-piece Auckland punk outfit led that achieved some prominence in 1979 and 1980 amidst a wave of like-minded bands. Feels So Good was their first and only single released during the band's existence. In June 1980 its lickety-split punk energy and the band's youthful fan-base helped it reach number 29 in the New Zealand charts in a five-week run. The single's video was also featured on TV's Radio With Pictures. Three months later the band split up in response to being barred from multiple music venues due to obnoxious behaviour, only reforming briefly in 1999. 

The Spelling Mistakes - Feels So Good (1980)

See also:

Music: The Terrorways - Short-Haired Rock 'n Roll (1980)

Music: The Scavengers - True Love (1979)

Music: The Crocodiles - Tears (1980)