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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."
But that would be harming the Moon's environment! What's the emote for rolling eyes?
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
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
I was thinking about sumitting it, but why the hassle - small chance it will get accepted
:)
about water on Mars. The problem is that temperature and pressure on Mars are oscilating around water triple-point, it means that there is a chance that you will get liquid/ice water at night, but it will vaporize during the day (speaking about non-polar areas, in polar areas water can stay in ice form). Colonists are more likely to settle near equator due to temperature and (maybe) resources. If we consider pressure also, then hellas planitia is very tempting.
And it looks like there is a workaround for problem with constantly vaporizing water - use salt water instead
I took this piece from http://marsnews.com/
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#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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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.
Maybe I've read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" too many times, but why would people be spending time on the surface if they did not need too? Wouldn't it make more sense to be spending more time below the surface?
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
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.
Unfortunately I can't imagine this working. The moon isn't _entirely_ made up of ferrous metals, so the dust must have some composition that is not ferrous, and therefore is not affected by the magnetic field. Is possible ionization of the other dust molecules enough to keep them out of suspension? I mean, even if the clumps trap some dust, more will be around to float, right?
This is just what our astro-men need: a lawnmower for their astro-turf. Will you be among them?
The dust doesn't give a f**k.
This actually kills no species. There aren't any.
Do you drive a car, mow your lawn, or use an electric or gas oven? Survival, at the least, is the most important factor.
Have you seen the moon? It has been blasted by meteors thousands or millions or billions or trillions of times. Does a metoer have more rights than we? Do you think that moving a bit of dust around compares with those black blasted craters?
Hell , I say terraform the moon, terraform Mars and Venus and terraform any damn gravity hole you like.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
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
Due the lack of wind and erosion, lunar dust is highly abrasive.
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!"
Dust here is mostly things that are or once were alive, carbon-based. Skin cells, hair, that sort of thing. The dust there is mineral, with parts of it being conductive. Besides being more abrasive, the conductivity can really screw with electronics.
It's a clever idea and all, but wouldn't it be simpler to just throw out some tarps?
OK, they'd need a bit more than some blue plastic, but really, I'm sure enough lightweight, ultraviolet resistant, tough modern technical fibers material to cover a fair space could easily be taken up for the weight and size of this "lawnmower" idea.
Let's hope it has a key ignition... pulling one of those stupid cords can't be fun in zero-g...
can someone please give a brief explanation of what the big deal is with lunar dust?
It's very very fine dust; think of how plaster dust manages to get everywhere, even clogging vacuums.
It's also apparently quite sharp (what with the general lack of erosion up there), and thus it manages to not only get everywhere, but also be irritating when it does. For the google-impaired.
The Moonwalkers found that the stuff clung to everything and on contact with the oxygen in the Lunar Module (LM), gave off a smell like gunpowder, due to the lack of normal oxidation on the Moon's surface.
The stuff was also fine and gritty and was like liquid sandpaper. It would scratch camera lens and wore away at lunar geology equipment. It could also cause fittings to not seat properly, a very important problem if you're counting on the seals on your spacesuit to remain airtight.
Of course if we're going to have people up there more or less permanently, they're going to working in the stuff every day, and the wear and tear on equipment may lead to some dangerous situations. The last thing an astronaut needs to have happen is to lose suit integrity when he/she is nowhere near shelter.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
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.
1- a satellite(s) that melts the regolith in a X meter wide path as it orbits.. as it cools, it will solidify - a use for SDI 'star wars' technology
pros- makes the entire surface dust free-- cheap by comparison energy is free out there...
cons- time consuming- ruins the surface for study by combining asteroids with lunar material-ya gotta do it all or it'll just spread around.
2- ultrasonically vibrate any surface (suits, domes, locks on the surface) exposed to the regolith at a really high frequency, so that it doesn't stick (ever put dust on a paper and make patterns? by shaking the paper?)
3- does regolith have any sort of charge? can you spray a suit with negative ions/ apply a battery to the metal to repel material? run a current through the metal to change the degree of attraction?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
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?
Did I miss something? I have a hard time believing that the microwave generators they're proposing are any more harmful than the unmitigated cosmic radiation hitting the surface every second.
antipaucity
'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.
Of course if we were up there "mowing the lawn" there would be at least one vulnerable species there...
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?
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.
the ability to use microwaves to solidify lunar dust into a "glassy substance" sounds much more interesting than merely dust control to me - what about construction? Couldn't the stuff be used to build structural walls and such for habitats rather than effectively patting it down into place on the ground?
It was long suspected that the dust could be used to make concrete for building, but up to now it had been assumed that we would have to take something to the moon with us in order to mix with the dust to make a good, working cement.
With this revelation it would seem that there is no need to bring any raw materials with us in order to build basic architectural structures, would it not? Heck, one of the references linked even indicated that a scientist has managed to achieve a similar result using nothing more than focused sunlight (heat).
It seems to me that all we ought have need of is some sort modular form-casting materials to contain the structural "walls" or what-have-you while the dust is collected and packed into place within the form and then a means of focusing solar energy onto the form to raise temperature levels until such time as the dust fuses together. Remove the form and wallah: moon walls.
Why is there no mention of this possibility in the article when it seems to be the next natural step in the train of thought?
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?