I have always found it interesting that helium leaves the planet when it escapes into the atmosphere. Something cool about letting some out of a balloon on the ground and knowing you have just launched something into space, to rise up and then get picked up by the solar wind and sent flying.
Romantic notions aside though, it is pretty common in space being the by product of the star's initial gas load. At some point I wonder if collecting it there will be economical.
Apparently helium balloons use only about 8% of the annual consumption of helium, and that's just about the highest-margin use there is--hospitals effectively pay less for their helium because it's subsidized by kiddie balloons.
It is an entirely fanciful notion that the cost of helium would ever be high enough that going to the moon to retrieve it would be economically viable.
Long term, perhaps. With the right technology you could skim Helium out of the atmosphere of Jupiter or Saturn.
As long as natural gas continues to be extracted, there's likely to be sufficient Helium production from Earthly sources for the foreseeable future. It mostly just requires the right equipment on wells.
Romantic notions aside though, it is pretty common in space being the by product of the star's initial gas load. At some point I wonder if collecting it there will be economical.