Which gas giant of the solar system could humanity mine and for what resource?

In a close future (in 100-200 years), humanity is in an energy/resource crisis and seeks new resources in the solar system. In my story, humanity, still in need after colonizing the moon, sends a mission to harvest a gas giant in the solar system.

For plot reasons, I need the main resource to be extracted from the gas giant itself. Trying to avoid unobtainium and looking into real resources, the more logical reason I've found (and after visiting this post) was extracting helium-3 for nuclear fusion.

But I face then three problems:

• Conditions in gas giant are harsh (pressure, storms, gravity, ...) and make extraction difficult, especially on Jupiter.
• Helium-3 seems to be obtainable as a by-product of hydrogen nuclear fusion. So I guess I have to handwave to make it not enough furnished or to make hydrogen fusion power-plant not technologically available.
• The distances and delta-v make the energy requirement not very viable to send it back to earth, whatever gas giant I'm aiming for. One idea was to harvest helium-3 and at the same time, looking for other resources nearby (like mining the moons) to make it more credible.

My questions are:

• Do you have a way to make helium-3 extraction viable? Or to find another interesting resource in a gas giant?
• Which one of the gas giant of the solar system would be most likely to be exploited?

posted almost 8 years ago

Binson‭

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