[HN Gopher] The moon dust problem facing scientists
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The moon dust problem facing scientists
Author : pseudolus
Score : 74 points
Date : 2023-04-29 16:43 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| mncharity wrote:
| For contrast, here are zoomable grains of lunar regolith[1] and
| random Earth sand[2]. Thus the insane abrasiveness, and use of
| crushed rock for simulant.
|
| [1]
| https://virtualmicroscope.org/sites/default/files/html5Asset...
| [2]
| https://www.virtualmicroscope.org/sites/default/files/html5A...
| tempodox wrote:
| Actual title: " _Why scientists are making fake Moon dust_ "
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| According to Cave Johnson, moon dust is also quite toxic.
| doodlesdev wrote:
| It also just happens to be a great portal conductor.
| teddyh wrote:
| (Quote from the 2011 computer game _Portal 2_ , said by the
| fictional character "Cave Johnson", voiced by J. K. Simmons)
| doodlesdev wrote:
| > Alright, I've been thinking. When life gives you lemons,
| don't make lemonade! Make life take the lemons back! Get mad!
| I don't want your damn lemons; what am I supposed to do with
| these? Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it
| thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I
| am? I'm the man who's gonna burn your house down... with the
| lemons! I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible
| lemon that burns your house down!
| uguuo_o wrote:
| I work on the field. Moon dust presents quite unique challenges
| that have been and continue to be studied at NASA and private
| industry. Regolith gets charge/discharge cycle that naturally
| pushes the smallest particles upwards. This plus whatever
| material is forced during landing, regolith will be around any
| potential structures and equipment that we bring to the moon. The
| problem is that it gets through seals, it attaches to equipment
| like sensors and communication, all causing failures. There are
| many potential solutions, all that are actively being explored at
| NASA and industry that include active and passive methods. Active
| include using electromagnetic fields to remove particles. Passive
| are using materials and/or manual mechanism. It is a very
| interesting problem that likely requires very radical active
| solutions.
| gibolt wrote:
| Solutions will be quickly iterated once we have feet on the
| Moon. Hopefully within a few years of that, there will be cheap
| and reliable solutions. Being able to test with real humans
| will go so much faster than sandbox tests on Earth.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| Awfully optimistic to think that inhabited settlements can
| withstand a few years of unmitigated regolith exposure
| gibolt wrote:
| Could be visit and return trips. Just need repeat
| opportunities to trial various solutions with a person
| there to inspect/return the results.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Speaking of sandbox testing, here in New Zealand we have a
| lot of beaches with black iron sand.
|
| It's very fine and gets absolutely everywhere. A layer is
| often in beachside houses. You see it in the toilets, it's in
| cars, in electronics near beaches, it's in your hair days
| later.
|
| It's stuck inside MRI scanners around town (I work with
| them).
|
| A finer dust would be a nightmare, as iron sand is bad
| enough.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Regolith seems to be an issue that is pervasive to unsealed
| containers. Doesn't it pose an equal harm then through human
| orifices by respiration etc?
| uguuo_o wrote:
| Yes. The NASA reports that study the potential effects on
| health do conclude that due to its particle shape, size, and
| composition, the fine regolith particles pose a significant
| danger to human health in prolonged exposure.
| jmclnx wrote:
| I thought I read many years ago there is a concern with
| breathing regolith in. Because regolith is _not_ kind of
| "smooth" like particles here on Earth, they can get stuck in
| the lungs causing various health issues.
| syngrog66 wrote:
| ie. like asbestos causing lung cancer
| hcrisp wrote:
| They are looking at new seal designs, like an inner
| labyrinthine seal covered by a series of other seals.
| uguuo_o wrote:
| Yes, new seal designs have been proposed and prototyped over
| the years. As far as I know, so take it with a huge grain of
| salt, no particular design is as of yet hailed as the
| solution to this problem. There have been multiple NASA
| technical briefings on the subject since Apollo, with the
| last one I have seen just a few years ago. These take into
| account all known solutions proposed by industry and NASA,
| and the problem just seems to get worse the more we learn
| about lunar regolith and the lunar environment.
| heisenbit wrote:
| What parts of the spectrum are affected by the dust?
| neilv wrote:
| > _One of the world 's largest producers is the Florida-based
| Exolith Lab which, since its founding in 2017, has produced 80
| tonnes (176,370lbs) of lunar and Martian soil simulants._
|
| > _[...] But if you do find a good simulant, it can be worth it.
| The closest matches range in price from $45 (PS36) to $150
| (PS120) per kg (2.2lbs)._
|
| How well are these producers of lunar soil simulants are
| _containing_ it? Any increased incidence of lung cancer /disease
| in downwind towns?
| gibolt wrote:
| Are there any known positive benefits or applications for moon
| dust?
|
| Could exporting some back to earth be useful for anything other
| than research of the Moon's past or how to better survive there
| asdfman123 wrote:
| It's extraordinarily expensive to transport it back to earth,
| so almost certainly not. It's just ground up rock, and we've
| got plenty of rock on earth.
| xony wrote:
| [dead]
| harimau777 wrote:
| I did an internship at NASA where I worked on mitigating moon
| dust. Something that the article doesn't mention is that, without
| an atmosphere, solar rays electrically charge the dust causing it
| to stick to everything. I remember reading a series of after
| action reports from each of the lunar landings discussing how
| they dealt with the dust. Eventually they started just opening
| the door after the left the moon so that the dust got sucked out
| into the vacuum.
|
| It was explained to me that if humanity ever tried to build a
| long term station on the moon, dealing with dust would be one of
| the biggest challenges.
| dreen wrote:
| What other solutions were discussed? Are there any crazy ones?
|
| My favourite idea is to somehow apply massive amounts of heat
| to the lunar surface basically melting the given area. Since
| there is no wind you won't get new dust there.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Probably simpler to spray some kind of adhesive.
| sbierwagen wrote:
| You're mass-constrained on the Moon. A big parabolic mirror
| could (slowly) fuse an unlimited amount of regolith.
| Retric wrote:
| New dust is constantly showing up, so it's still a finite
| area.
|
| https://sservi.nasa.gov/articles/leaping-lunar-dust/
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Chairface Chippendale was just ahead of his time!
| wolfram74 wrote:
| Not wind as we deal with on earth, but that same process that
| electrically charges the dust also moves it enough that
| there's a large cloud of sodium atoms in it it's shadow[0].
| That and other elements do travel a bit around the surface.
| Unsure what kind of fluxes we'd have to deal with, but
| keeping an area dust free would involve some constant effort.
|
| [0]https://carlschmidt.science/Moon/Moon.html
| imglorp wrote:
| There are several projects to electrostatically repel charged
| dust from surfaces.
|
| My search foo is failing but one of the space youtubers got a
| live demo in a lab where some dust was applied to a treated
| material and then a current was applied: the dust flew off
| instantly.
| kibwen wrote:
| I believe this is the video:
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=0k9wIsKKgqo
| imglorp wrote:
| Yes, thanks.
| GrumpyNl wrote:
| Every day this effect is shown in commercials for the
| "swiffer".
| [deleted]
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