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."

Comments

Re:Hmmm

[chimpo13]

Sorry, I accidently RTFA.

The Apollo astronauts couldn't help but get covered in the stuff as they struggled to stay upright on the moon's surface, where the force of gravity is one-sixth of that on Earth. Later, they tracked the dust back into their space capsules and inhaled it when they took off their helmets.

It won't happen again.

Re:Lunar Dust Photos and Explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't mod this guy up. He is a whore for his site. Just look at his history, all he does is post worthless articles that are semi-ontopic that link to his site.

Re:Lung Disease

[MillionthMonkey]

I think that if you're freely breathing in dust with no protection between you and the lunar surface, you've got bigger issues to worry about than silicosis.

Lunar dust is reported to smell like exploded firecrackers, according to a 2002 interview with John Hirasaki, an Apollo recovery technician:

JIM [interviewer]: Did you have to go into isolation prior to the splashdown? If so how long beforehand? Was this done to minimize your exposure to viruses and germs that might have caused alarm if you and/or others in isolation became ill?

JOHN: Dr. Bill Carpentier and I were placed into isolation within the MQF about the same time as the launch of Apollo 11. The reason for our biological isolation was for the reason that you indicated... At the LRL, on our side of the biological barrier, I recall that the Public Affairs Officer joined the five of us to assist in post-flight debriefings and interviews with the news media. Also during our stay in the LRL, we had two laboratory technicians join us at different intervals because of accidental breeches of biological isolation while they were handling lunar samples on their side of the LRL. The LRL itself is a fascinating story that deserves to be told.

JIM: You personally retrieved the Apollo 11 lunar sample containers from Columbia shortly after the Command Module was brought on board the Hornet. Do you have specific memories of entering the spacecraft? Did the boxes look "dusty" or smudged?

JOHN: The first unusual item that I noticed upon entering the Apollo 11 Command Module was a unique scent that reminded me of smell of exploded firecrackers or the scent that you notice when you strike flint together. I had not noticed this scent when I opened other Command Modules following their flights.

The lunar sample return containers were slightly smudged with dust from the surface of the moon but this dust was especially prevalent on the surface of the suits worn by Armstrong and Aldrin. These suits were stored in the Command Module below the crew couches. Traces of the dust appeared on many surfaces since the fine powder like nature of the moon dust inadvertently allowed it to be transferred to other surfaces.

I cannot say that the aroma was a direct result of the "moon dust" being present in the cabin even though that was what I surmised. There could be other explanations for the aroma that are not related to the presence of the dust. After reviewing the post-flight notes from the Apollo 11 mission, there was a comment made during crew debriefing that a "strong odor of burnt material" was noticed following the S-IVB stage separation when the crew opened the CSM tunnel.

Google cache here.

playa dust

[capilot]

We should have a betting pool on how many people point out that you're not supposed to breathe outside on the moon. Thanks folks, I never knew that. Seriously, the stuff sounds like playa dust to me, and anybody who's ever been out on the playa knows that you track that stuff in with you all the time. If lunar dust is half as pervasive as playa dust, it's going to take serious decontamination to keep it outside.

Re:Pressurized...

[daVinci1980]

Yay. Another +5 Insightful that didn't RTFA. :-\

You seem to have your pressures mixed up. The pressure inside the cabin of an airplane is substantially *higher* then the air pressure outside. (IIRC, the difference is about 15 lbs / in). That would tend to make the cabin door want to burst open, as opposed to staying closed.

Notwithstanding, the article doesn't really discuss the concern of dust getting into the suit. The concern is dust on the suit, which then comes into the lunar facility with the astronaut. The astronaut (lunarnaut?) then takes off his helmet inside the facility and BAM! Lunar dust can now conceivably get into his lungs.

The bigger problem is any lunar dust that makes its way back to the spacecraft. When the craft goes back into space and into zero-g, the particles which were resting on the ground are now floating in the air.

Re:Toner Research

[schnikies79]

Well for one, they don't use their actual space suits; they are special suits that look/work identical to actual suits made especially for the neutral buoyancy tank.

Re:Mars?

[Eminence]

• I wonder how this compares to Mars dust.

Logically it shouldn't be like on the Moon since Mars has an atmosphere - it even has dust storms.

But this is one more remainder that decision taken some time ago by NASA to go first to the Moon and then to Mars makes no real sense. This was discussed widely, also on /. but one of the reasons was that Moon would serve as a testing ground for solutions to be used on Mars. As this example shows Moon may require totally different habitats, suits and equipment - in some aspects even up to much higher standards than for Mars.