Closing Bell - Manifest Space: Why Interlune and Bluefors are teaming up to mine helium on the Moon 9/22/25

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

Helium-3 is a critical resource for quantum computing and other futuristic technologies. But it is extremely rare on Earth. Luckily, the Moon contains tons of it. Morgan Brennan sits down with Interlune co-founders Rob Meyerson and James Antifaev along with Bluefors’ Chief Business Officer Dr. David Gunnarsson to discuss their partnership aiming to bring Helium-3 to Earth from the Moon. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Helium 3 is a resource critical for quantum computing and other futuristic technologies like fusion energy. It's extremely rare on Earth, but abundant on the moon, which is why Blue Force has struck a 10-year, $300 million deal with Interlune to supply Helium 3, mined from the moon. Blue Force is a Finland-based cryogenic cooling company for quantum technology. Interlun is a venture-backed startup developing spacecraft and infrastructure to extract the resource from the moon and bring it back. to Earth. Interloon is also developing methods to produce more helium-3 terrestrily as well. Delivery would begin in 2028. On this episode, Interloon co-founders, Rob Meyerson, and James Antefev, and Blue Forest Chief Business Development Officer David Gunnerson, talk helium-3, quantum, and the moon. I'm Morgan Brennan, and this is Manifest Space. Joining me now, Rob Meyerson,

interloon co-founder and CEO, James Antefeb, Interloon co-founder, and head of product. and Dr. David Gunnerson, Bluefor's Chief Business Development Officer and Principal Scientists. Gentlemen, it's great to speak with all of you today. Thank you for taking the time. Very happy to be here. So you're all joining me right now because you announced a big partnership, a deal this week. So, Rob, I'll start this off with you and specifically what this means for Interloon, this partnership between Interloon and Blue Force.

Well, thanks, Morgan. And we're really happy to be here. We announced this week on Tuesday at the Quantum World Congress that BluePours, the world's market leader in cryogenic dilution refrigeration and Interloon have entered into a partnership to where Interloon will provide helium 3, which is a stable isotope of helium, which is the essential ingredient for cooling quantum chips down to millicelvin temperatures. And we announced this to green. and it is really the best signal we've had yet that Helion 3 is a critical material for the future of quantum computing and we're glad that Interlin is in the middle of it. And Dr. Gunnerson, what does this mean for Blue Force? This is a very important step for us. As mentioned, helium-free is a quite scarce resource on Earth.

And as the quantum computing community grows and the need for more cryogenics grows, it's really important to have other sources. So we're very happy, happy that the interlune actually is doing this. And this news, of course, Dr. Gunnerson comes in the midst of a big conference in Washington, D.C. that's focused on quantum computing. Where would we say we are within this quantum computing? What chapter we're in right now, as we keep talking about the promise and prospect of it? I think we are actually in the middle of it.

I think there is a lot of talks here about fault tolerant quantum computing is on the verge. And quantum advantage is just around the corner. So I think they are now starting talking more about applications coming from different algorithms that will feed into this hardware. So I think it has changed from being researched to actually being algorithm and application driven. So that has been the tone for the whole conference. So that's very promising. James, how did this deal come together? Well, it's been a long journey of Blue Force and Interlun getting to know each other.

We started off several years ago talking with Blue Force about their roadmap for the future. And Blue Force has experienced tremendous growth since then. At the same time, Interlune has made a lot of progress. in developing our technology as we progress towards the moon. And at this point, it only felt natural that we would get into an agreement like this because we've made enough progress to demonstrate that we're gonna be able to fulfill these commitments.

And at the same time, Blue Forest is growing and is looking for ways to support that growth. What is it going to take for Interloon to be able to actually start delivering helium-3? Well, interloon is working on a series of prospecting and then demonstration and then operational missions over the remainder of the decade. So we'll kind of take a crawl, walk, run approach to doing this. We're well underway in developing the technologies that we'll be using on the moon.

And at the same time, a lot of the infrastructure that we will utilize, such as the rockets, landers, rovers, et cetera, is already being funded and being developed by NASA and other government partners. So we see all of that infrastructure coming together by the end of the decade. And what is it going to take to actually, Rob, to actually be able to harvest, extract that mine, that helium three and get it back down to Earth? Yeah, the core technologies that James hinted at are our excavation, material sorting, extraction of the solar wind gases from the regolith and then separation. And we have progress going in all of those areas.

So we announced our partnership with Vermeer Corporation in May of this year for excavation. The size sorting, our first prototype is just behind me here in our lab here in Seattle. The excavation work we've been continuing to do. And then latest progress in the cryogenic separation, we've demonstrated the ability to separate helium three from helium gas, from terrestrial helium gas, and we're pursuing equipment to do that terrestrially so that we can be in a better position earlier than before we get to the moon to separate helium three and produce that product to sell to blue force in the 2028.

And if I just take a step back, Dr. Gunnerson, on helium three, why is this so critical to quantum computing and this ability to build out the infrastructure for quantum computing and why is it such a scarce resource or commodity here on earth that going to the moon to get it actually makes economic sense. To start with the need of helium-free is that quantum technology, most of the modalities doing, especially quantum computing, needs to be at extremely low temperatures. And there is a few different technologies but the one that has been most scalable is something called dilution refrigerators and they are based on having the helium-free isotope and helium-4 isotope mixed together and that

enables you to actually go down to a few thousands above absolute zero so you actually put your payload at these extremely low temperatures we believe that we can be profitable at the current market price like rob mentioned we do expect that as we see scale up and as the industry grows we'll be able to achieve some economies of scale and you know we'll be looking at what those are and into the future but right now we're focused on increasing the supply so that customers like blue force know that they can depend on their supply chain growing with them and for blue force uh i guess how are you so you're so you've got this deal with intraloon are you striking other deals or other partnerships partnerships with other companies as well

I think, of course, we already have a supply base of helium-free, but it's, as I said, based on this older way of getting it. And we sell roughly 10,000 liters a year with our systems nowadays. So as our product lines expands, the need for more and more is actually coming. And of course, we hope that there is sort of economy of scales also in this helium-free as it goes further. Then as quantum computing and the promise of quantum computing continues to be realized here in the coming years, Dr. Gunnerson, what is that going to mean in terms of the demand for the infrastructure buildout? I think about AI infrastructure buildout, which is obviously a huge, massive, heady investment right now. I mean, are we talking about something similar for quantum or not so much? I think initially it might be quite I think it's not the numbers that we have in AI today but I think the whole promise with quantum is that you should need a smaller infrastructure to sort of actually solve certain problems that actually people are not solving today

because they are not possible to actually solve on traditional high performance computers or with AI so I think it's not only going to replace traditional computing on old problems it's also going to let us actually solve new problems that we never thought we could actually use computational power to do and those infrastructures i think they will they will start modest and and it might also need quite a lot of support from traditional computation to actually perform the task but they are like a booster to the computation we do today I think the term is heterogeneous computation is sort of the name of the game when it comes to

solve more and more problems that we never sold before. Rob, the applications for Helium 3 and what that means in terms of your customer base and your total addressable market. Yeah, the quantum computing is our go-to-market. It's a very, very important market for us in addition to the current latent market for radiation portal monitors for border order security. But in the future, the growth markets come in with fusion energy and medical imaging, where helium-3 can be used to produce, you know, improved results. And in the case of fusion energy, we don't have commercial fusion yet, but we will someday very soon. And helium-3

will be the ideal fuel once available for GENT-2 fusion in improving on fusion energy and providing clean energy for the growing world. Are there any rules or regulations about mining helium-3 on the moon? There are, Morgan. In 2015, the Space Resources Exploration and Utilization Act was passed into law in the United States, which says that any U.S. flag company can go to the moon or any other planetary body and obtain a resource and bring it back to Earth and own it and sell it. And that is great legal cover for us.

We can't claim the land that we operate on. There's no regime for claiming the land. The moon is for all of us. But the resources that we do extract, we can own and we intend to put that lot of work. Wow. So whether from a geopolitical standpoint or an economic standpoint, we talk a lot about the competition, the great power competition between the U.S. and China, I just wonder how that plays out where the moon is concerned. Well, it's important. We believe the moon is for all of us. I would say not everybody in the world believes that. I think that the resources on the moon

are far too valuable for us to ignore and not pay attention to putting a U.S. and a western lander and infrastructure on the moon to process helium three and other resources. That's important to do. The Chinese have a longstanding plan in a series of very, very successful milestones that they've achieved over the last five to six years. They have a mission in 2028 called Changa 8, where they intend to extract resources and demonstrate lunar construction, and we're watching that. We have an opportunity to go alongside or even get to the moon before the Chinese. I think it's important for us to think about that.

And I also think it's important to make sure that we have the infrastructure like power to survive the extreme environment of the moon so that we can operate. for more than a lunar day, which is just a 14 Earth base. So those are things we're thinking about in Airloon and certainly things that are being thought about in the space industry. Thank you so much for the conversation. Rob Meyerson, James Antefev, and Dr. David Gunnerson, as we continue to track the work of interlune and Blue Force

and what this means for helium-3 and the future of quantum computing and more. Thank you so much. That does it for this episode of Manifest Space. Make sure you never miss a launch by following us wherever you get your podcasts and by watching our coverage on Closing Bell Overtime. I'm Morgan Brennan.