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Lunar Dust: A Major Worry for Moon Visitors
smooth wombat writes "Wired has a story which talks about a danger to possible future inhabitants of the Moon that is rarely brought up: the highly abrasive lunar dust. Unlike Earth, the Moon has no erosive capabilities to smooth the edges of rocks or dust. As a result the lunar dust has arms that stick out, like Velcro, and sticks to everything. As the astronauts who walked on the moon found out, the dust scratched lenses and corroded seals within hours. Some of the particles are only microns across which means once they get into your lungs, they stay there. This could cause a lung disease similar to silicosis."
Who do we have to thank about that? The smokers of the world!
Just think. Iron lungs, operations, tracheotomies, breathing machines, voice boxes, all that. All that moon dust that's gonna end up in your lungs? Second hand dust, just like second hand smoke. Right? Right.
All the technology to handle lung disease is already here. You should be thanking the tobacco companies right now. Or... you should be lighting up... to umm, help your lungs adjust to the moon dust... Yeah!
I for one salute the smokers of this world, for giving us the technology to explore and survive on the moon and in outer space.
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This joke was brought to you by camel cigarettes. Now light up, maggots!
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
that biodomes will be clean. All the sci-fi movies had moon cities in a giant biodome! Anyone who goes outside and interacts with the dust gets cleaned on the way back in
As the astronauts who walked on the moon found out, the dust scratched lenses and corroded seals within hours. Some of the particles are only microns across which means once they get into your lungs, they stay there. This could cause a lung disease similar to silicosis.
I wonder if breathing a vaccum without 'dust' in the air would cause a lung disease too?
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
Lunar dust (loo-near duhst)n.
Highly abrasive and difficult to remove.
see Republicans
We can help. If you have been injured by dust not of this earth we can help. Call Dewey, Keetum and Howe 999.000.04~4 Now, time is slipping away you could lose your chance to get money for your injuries.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
...that poor cow. Do you think it suffered?
So if the radiation, metorites, temperature, subversive crewmembers, psychotic computers, lack of air, fuel, or water doesn't get you... the dirt will.
...I'd still go.
(strip soft/first post?)
Slashdot beaten by Fark (this was posted days ago).. A sad sad day for /.
2 + 2 = 5. Big Brother's watching you. bonglord.com
Damnit. All I've ever wanted to do was send all the lawyers to the moon .. but now it seems they'll serve a purpose there... looks like the sun is our only option!
Say, I heard Christopher Columbus met this crazy bunch of people called the Caribs!
Later on, the Carbs were killed by the genocidal Dr. Atkinson.
"Dust is the No. 1 environmental problem on the moon,"
And here I thought it was the lack of segnificant atmosphere. Silly me.
Although I do think it is great that we are considering other major problems.
Just tell the astronauts to hold their breath when they go outside.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
Do volcanos even have lungs?
This could cause a lung disease similar to silicosis.
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicolunarosis!!!
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The Chinese have OSHA?
The landings were quite real. They had a full 48-bit mantissa and 16-bit exponent.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I wont take any deep breaths while I'm on the moon. Thanks for the heads up!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Just take some dust-slaying Nano-shurikens of Doom with you (TG is owned by OSTG, the parent company of Slashdot, so activate all conspiracy theories now). They'll take care of it, whoop-ass style.
While you're there, you can also look into the new iPod accessory iCopulate which allows intimacy between mp3 players never before fantasized. And for the suit that has everything, Executve Pong. There's also Alarm Pills that help you wake up and fall asleep and a new USB-powered Fundue set available.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
You are arguing the Republicans are mooning us...?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Just hire the spaceballs & their Mega Maid. Operation Vacu-suck seemed to work on Druidia
Nah, that kind of suit is way too porous for this kind of dust.
If you are returning to a space port in the US, we noe require a passport. If not, you may be required to stay on the moon and die, or even worse, go to Canada.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Come on NASA, how hard could it be?
- Lightweight jumpsuits you wear on the outside of your pressure suit, which you put on and take off in the airlock.
- Blow the site clean with gas jets or ions before you go for a walk. There no wind -- once the dust is gone, it's not coming back any time soon.
- Mag-cloride does a bang up job gumming the road dust together here on earth, spray the site with some before you get out of the capsule. You can be sure it will dry fast.
- The dust is only inches thick. Use a broom. Move the dust out of your normal outside work areas. Don't just wallow in it like a moon-billy. Act civilized!
Liberty you never use is liberty you lose.
couldnt they just apply some kind of lunar dust filter to the pattern buffer and beam the stuff off me?
Sorry, being lunar today.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Can't we just fuse it all into glass with a few thousands well placed nukes?
No, that would blow it flat out of orbit, resulting in some really bad sci-fi. PLEASE don't do that.
Tag lost or not installed.
A moon tourist has spent millions getting there. Surely stumping up for a few worn camera lenses is just going to be hiss...
Engineering is the art of compromise.
### What do you ppl think?
Get a big fat vacuum cleaner and cleanup the area where you want to build your house on the moon. After all there is no wind on the moon, so once the dust is cleaned up, it won't come back so quickly. If you drive of course around with some moon vehicle you might still have a bunch of dust issues left, but then maybe you can build roads up there.
Thanks! I'll remember that next time I'm on the moon.
...but is it art?
I think that the problem is clearly with taking seals to the moon. I mean, like, aint they endangered species or sumpthen? Of course they are going to corrode up on the moon, they were designed for an ocean environment and there just isn't enough water in the vacumn for them!
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Save the Seals from NASA!
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
As soon as they pass legislation to make all the asbestos lawsuits go away, there will be wave after wave of moon dust lawsuits. Betcha they'll claim the stuff just falls out of the sky, and the lawsuits will allege that God is liable.
there is also the problem of drying the suit before it becomes a breeding ground for various microorganisms.
vacuum
Uh huh. How do you run a vacuum cleaner in a vacuum?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
There is no excuse for reading the article. The only excuse for even going and loading it, is to try and cut/paste into a posting here, trolling for karma. You should damn well know better by now, actually making intelligent comments based on the articles content is a sure sign of total incompetence with regard to how /. works.
It won't happen again.
It damn well better not, this kind of behaviour can only result in intelligent and <shudder>informed</shudder> commentary. Thats NOT what /. is all about...
Silicosis: the decrease in lung capacity as a result of excessive pressure due to silicone implants.
What, is that a trick question? You plug it in first dummy!
--
(Not a rocket scientist, but an electrical engineer).