What is really behind the "race" to the Moon?

I wondered how long this would take before I started hearing this kind of grumbling. My first exposure to interest in Helium 3 was a story posted November ov last year by Ron Huber which speculated on the interest the Chinese where showing in Luna "exploration". It seemed that their interest centered mostly on the vast quantities of H3 on our companion. (for those of you not in the know, Helium 3 is center-most in research into fusion power generation. Helium-3 is considered as a long-term, stable, safe, clean and cheap material for human beings to get nuclear energy through controllable nuclear fusion experiments. Of course "cheap" is the operative word here with speculation raising the worth of a ton to several billion dollars.) Earth mining really isn't an option. All told there might be 15 tons of helium-3 on Earth, while on the Moon, the total amount of Helium-3 can reach one to five million tons. So you can see that renewed interest in returning to the Moon by the USA instead of being motivated by the lofty goals of expanding our horizons, but more making sure we get our fair share of the moon pie. So it goes without saying I am not surprised when people start speculating more loudly that China and Russia may have an "agenda" for gaining a toehold on the Moon.

To see what I mean, read this article by Casey Kazan of the Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff

Moonrush is on, as wannabe exploiters and luna-huggers square off.

'Harvest Moon' takes on another meaning, as Terran "Moonrushers" point to fortunes to be made exploiting the vast deposits of madly valuable lunar ores containing helium-3 (He-3) that are now asserted to exist in easily mineable and transportable commercial quantities of the material.

Others, noting an increased propensity by the planet's nation-states to extraterritorially lay claim to the hitherto sacrosanct polar regions of Antarctica and Arctica, warn that Chinese planning for lunar colonization is well underway,

But do they have a claim? The host of mining interests and rocketeers that hope to stripmine Helium-3 rich moondust from the lunar "seas" have no more claim than any other earthlings. The Chinese nation however, could invoke their historic claim to already possessing the entire moon as their exclusive economic zone under the Shang Dynasty Son of Heaven declaration asserting China's extraplanetary hegemony as the ruler of "All under heaven".

With even a conservative definition of the outer rim of "heaven" encompassing the entire suite of planets and suns perceptible from Terra, Chinese claims to the moon could be seen as a small expression of the ancient claim.

In recent centuries competing groups of Terrans have used such ancient ownership claims as the aforenoted Chinese one to justify struggle for control over regions of their planet from which they may have departed millenia earlier.

(It is of course doubtful in the extreme that the People's Republic would ever advance the Shang Dynasty's space claims. But China has sent historic exploratory voyages before; Zheng He's explorations of the Indian Ocean are renowned.)

Moon-struck fight back.
Luna-huggers have also appeared, demanding protection of their planet's sole moon from the visible-from-earth scarring that would be the outcome of the application of industrial mining operations on a profitable scale to the nearly entirely pristine lunar surface environment.

Concerned about presently unforeseeable consequences, such opponents of lunar commercial exploitation may call for development and of a precautionary Lunar Impact Study Protocol requiring consideration of likely extralunar impacts of such mining, including degradation of the Moon's aesthetic resources.

Is is widely believed that large quantities of He-3 brought to Terra could power suffient fusion energy to allow for significant reduction in the use of carboniferous fossil fuels useful in s0lve the planet's global warming/energy source challenges

For the record, the Harvest Moon is the full moon nearest to Terra's autumnal equinox.