Billions of tons of resources, ranging from water to gases to metals, have been detected on the Moon and further out into space, and both governments and private companies are navigating the ambiguous legal parlance to determine how to reach, extract and distribute it all.

Stopping nuclear smuggling is already tough. But it’s about to get a lot harder. Helium-3, a crucial ingredient in neutron-particle-detection technology, is in extremely short supply.

The Department of Homeland Security has spent $230 million to develop better technology for detecting smuggled nuclear bombs but has had to stop deploying the new machines because the United States has run out of Helium-3.

Indian space scientists expect to map the lunar surface for the helium-3 (He-3) mineral to fuel nuclear power plants and frozen water as they make final preparations for India’s mission to the moon, expected to blast off next month.

The moon is once again a popular destination, as several space-faring nations are talking about setting up bases there. One reason would be to mine fuel for future fusion reactors.

The fuel in this case is helium-3, a lighter isotope of the helium used in balloons. In high energy collisions, helium-3 fuses with other nuclei to release more energy and less waste than the reactions in traditional nuclear reactors.

Since the beginning of the Space Age, space programs have been adjuncts of national policy rather than self-sustaining ventures in their own right. Nader Elhefnawy discusses how a shift to space resource exploitation could alter that formula, depending on national and international politics.

Lab experiments suggest that future fusion reactors could use helium-3 gathered from the moon.

China and India both are planning to launch moon shots within a year in the latest sign of the two Asian powerhouses' intensifying rivalry and growing technological prowess.

A new race to the moon is getting underway, with China, Russia, Japan, India, and the U.S. all developing programs to exploit the moon for national prestige or its vast mineral and energy resources.

NASA's planned moon base announced last week could pave the way for deeper space exploration to Mars, but one of the biggest beneficiaries may be the terrestrial energy industry.

Nestled among the agency's 200-point mission goals is a proposal to mine the moon for fuel, helium-3, used in fusion reactors -- futuristic power plants that have been demonstrated in proof-of-concept but are likely decades away from commercial deployment.