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Lunar 'Lawnmower' Devised for Moon Colonists
moon_unit_alpha writes "Future Moon residents may have to mow the lunar lawn. New Scientist Space reports that a planetary geologist has come up with a way to prevent Moon dust from sticking to space suits, getting into seals and damaging electronic and mechanical equipment - the lunar lawnmower. The mower could be hauled behind a lunar rover, generating microwaves that cause iron particles in the dust to clump together."
Yeah, imagine all the species whose habitats would be destroyed
Wouldn't you want it in front of the rover?
useless sig advice - Read Nabokov.
Has NASA contracted with John Deere to build them?
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
plus it makes a kiler scrambled egg, and warms your innards all in one step, all for the low low price of $19.95
[font size="2"]numbers represented are for illustrative purposes only, and actually are in 000,000's.[/font]
"In place of whirling blades, however, the machine would use microwaves to force dust particles to clump together."
My cat desperately needs one of these.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
and I thought I had it bad when I had to go out, pull the lawnmower from the shed, gas it up, work to crank-start it, and then push it around for a half an hour, emptying the bag as necessary.
So, kids of the future will complain about having to clean up, provision the spacesuit, suit up, run diagnostics on the suit, activate a tracking beacon, depressurize through the airlock, walk/hop over to the seperate hazardous equipment dome, repressurize, run diagnostics on the 'moon mower', perform maintenance if necessary, un-umbilicle the device, push it into the airlock, re-seal the spacesuit and run diagnostics, depressurize, and only then do they get to pushing the thing around the surface for a half an hour...
Somehow I don't think that, "back in MY day!" stories will work on those kids. *sigh*
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Meanwhile, if they can manage to grow corn on the Moon, there shouldn't a problem with Moonbase Movie Night.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
This is just what our astro-men need: a lawnmower for their astro-turf. Will you be among them?
As an aspiring moon colonist I'd always wondered about this, now I can sleep easy at night with the *final* barrier to space colonisation crumbling in front of my very own slashdot blurred eyes.
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
.. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I, for one, welcome "whatever TFA is about" overlords...
the dust tends to deteriate the seals on the space suits (such as the gloves, air hose intakes, helmet, etc). This generaly falls on the list of "Things that are bad whilst on the surface of the moon" right next to "Oh my god, spacemonster!"
Let's hope it has a key ignition... pulling one of those stupid cords can't be fun in zero-g...
Where the first few people to walk on the moon that messy?. I suppose the price of a good cleaning service up there is pretty high so I can understand it. There's real potential to make some serious money offering the first lunar cleaning service. Damn, no one steal my idea please.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
And can you imagine the blade hitting that monolith?! You thought sprinkler heads were bad!
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
Now you tell me we'd hafta cultivate the lunar dust? Thanks a lot!
I read
I suddenly realized why so many slashdotters find living in space so attractive. To me, the idea of spending 99% of one's time crammed in some spartan, cold moon base does not seem very appealing. On the other hand, it is probably not much different from the average slashdotter's living space, i.e. their mom's basement. When you add in the superhuman-like lifting and jumping abilities ("Look at me now, high school gym teacher!") the allure obviously becomes irresistible.
How do you know our Halliburton Overlords aren't just keeping the pipeline's existence a secret?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
'Lunar lawnmower' to deal with Moon dust menace
I've felt menaced by Moon Dust for years. Thank God our government's clumping technology will finally put an end to my sleepless nights
i got ball this is my adress 108 20 37 av corona come n do it iam give u the sidekick so I can hit you wit it
...the Russians just use a pencil.
Are you referring to cancer in Brest, France or Brest, Belarus?
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
Assumptions can turn around and bite you in the ass sometimes... how do you know there aren't any extremophiles buried deep in the lunar underground?
To me, this thing should be called a "lunar vacuum cleaner".
It's job is to get rid of dust, and it operates in a vacuum (well at least more vacuum than on earth)
There is really nothing resembling a "lawn mover" here.
And THAT is why we need to organize now and start protesting the exploitation of the moon before "the corporations" have a chance to spoil it like they did our planet. Imagine all the potentially helpful species on the moon that will be wiped out if "the corporations" get there without someone keeping an eye on them!
It's time we have a big Hippy Jam Festival to raise awareness of this issue!
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
That is the Korean/Japanese smiley face emote, not a rolling eyes emote.
Shouldn't this really be called a "Moonraker"?
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
So thats what kids are calling it these days?