Lunar Dustbusters

Maggie McKee writes "Moon dust could be a source of oxygen and metals. But moon dust could also lodge in astronauts' lungs, possibly triggering long-term health effects. During the relatively short Apollo Moon landing missions nearly 40 years ago, astronauts reported difficulty breathing. So now, before astronauts return to the moon in 2020, NASA is working on a number of ways to reduce the amount of lunar dust astronauts are exposed to — from simple grates on the floor to magnetic wands and giant lint rollers."

Comments

I don't see the problem.

[jd]

Breathing hard vaccuum is a really bad idea, so most space suits likely to be worn will be 100% isolated from the outside. This means that the only possible place for dust to get into lungs would be in the landing capsule - if the helmets are removed. Let's say, however, that they are not. That the astronaut simply connects to a piped oxygen supply when in the capsule. Then the risk of contamination is greatly reduced. Not eliminated, but reduced.

There is still the problem of when the astronaut connects to the piped air. That connection could potentially get contaminated with dust and therefore potentially be hazardous. With no air in the capsule, the dust cannot be carried by convection currents. This means that dust must eventually hit the floor. If the floor is a mesh with aerogel under it, the dust will be trapped by the gel but the astronauts will be able to walk just fine.

This eliminates the problem of when the astronauts finally return to the main rocket. With the dust trapped in aerogel, you should be able to repressurize the capsule without stirring the dust back up. Thus, there should be no risk in doing so. If you want to be ultra-careful, you could always have the astronauts spacewalk to and from the capsule and never have the capsule pressurized at all. The saving in weight by not having it pressurized would be minimal and spacewalks are not risk-free, but it would remove any last possibility of dust hazard. Personally, I'd have thought the aerogel would be sufficient, but that would certainly be one way to remove the last remaining risk-factor.

(*aerogel is used here to denote not only the substance that trades under that name but any material that could act as a sponge for ultrafine dust particles of the quantities under consideration AND which is light enough to be a practical method of preventing dust circulation. Frankly, if you could find a way of stacking toothpicks to do the same thing, I'd take that over a brand-name for the sheer geek value.)