Helium Miner's Song
Feb. 7th, 2021 03:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catamarinerWords and Music (c)2020 Heather L. Preston (reprint permission to Conflikt Songbook 2021)
C Am / C Em / F Em Am F / Am F G C
The Earth it orbits ‘round the Sun near 1 degree per day
And as it does, the Moon revolves and orbits on its way
(Ch) Once around its axis / means once around the Earth
So-I’ll meet forever gazing toward the planet of my birth
Fusion gave us energy both plentiful and green
But the safest uses* Helium-3, so rare yet burns so clean *(YOO-zez)
We’ve reached for the moon again, the gold rush has begun
Processing the regolith for treasure from the Sun
There’s mostly automation to extract the Helium-3
Still the tech requires maintenance, and that job falls to me
From the farside highland station to the peaks of constant light
Where the crater walls protect the precious ice within their night
[Ch]
The dark is two weeks long out here, and likewise runs the day
And as for the horizon, well, it’s never far away
The Earth’s a dazzling sky-jewel in this land of black and gray
Reminding me of what I’ve given up to earn my pay
The Earth’s thin precious atmosphere protects it just a bit
From cosmic rays and asteroids, at least the smaller hits
But on the moon, no atmosphere is cushioning each blow
A tiny rock can deal a shock that’s death to those below
[Ch]
It caught me through the backpack as I fixed a solar cell
And if that hadn’t slowed it, I’d have nothing more to tell
But lying on my back now, frozen blood has blocked the hole
I have a few more moments yet, to try and calm my soul
And my heart is filled with love although it’s failing me at last
For the sky-jewel of my homeworld now forever in my past
And I wouldn’t trade this beauty for another 20 years
Hold fast to dreams, I’ve lived it choosing dreams above our fears.
[Ch]
(Yes, the last two lines of the first verse are the chorus… vary the notes sung in last two lines of each verse but stick with the chord structure and it works :-) Enjoy. This grew out of a Space Science class I took where we looked at the enrichment of He-3 around the equatorial regions of the lunar regolith, due to aeons of solar wind driving the stuff into the surface. – HLP)
C Am / C Em / F Em Am F / Am F G C
The Earth it orbits ‘round the Sun near 1 degree per day
And as it does, the Moon revolves and orbits on its way
(Ch) Once around its axis / means once around the Earth
So-I’ll meet forever gazing toward the planet of my birth
Fusion gave us energy both plentiful and green
But the safest uses* Helium-3, so rare yet burns so clean *(YOO-zez)
We’ve reached for the moon again, the gold rush has begun
Processing the regolith for treasure from the Sun
There’s mostly automation to extract the Helium-3
Still the tech requires maintenance, and that job falls to me
From the farside highland station to the peaks of constant light
Where the crater walls protect the precious ice within their night
[Ch]
The dark is two weeks long out here, and likewise runs the day
And as for the horizon, well, it’s never far away
The Earth’s a dazzling sky-jewel in this land of black and gray
Reminding me of what I’ve given up to earn my pay
The Earth’s thin precious atmosphere protects it just a bit
From cosmic rays and asteroids, at least the smaller hits
But on the moon, no atmosphere is cushioning each blow
A tiny rock can deal a shock that’s death to those below
[Ch]
It caught me through the backpack as I fixed a solar cell
And if that hadn’t slowed it, I’d have nothing more to tell
But lying on my back now, frozen blood has blocked the hole
I have a few more moments yet, to try and calm my soul
And my heart is filled with love although it’s failing me at last
For the sky-jewel of my homeworld now forever in my past
And I wouldn’t trade this beauty for another 20 years
Hold fast to dreams, I’ve lived it choosing dreams above our fears.
[Ch]
(Yes, the last two lines of the first verse are the chorus… vary the notes sung in last two lines of each verse but stick with the chord structure and it works :-) Enjoy. This grew out of a Space Science class I took where we looked at the enrichment of He-3 around the equatorial regions of the lunar regolith, due to aeons of solar wind driving the stuff into the surface. – HLP)
