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Magnetic Trunk Could Collect Moon Dust
Matthew Sparkes writes "Astronauts living on the Moon will need lots of water, oxygen and other resources that can be extracted from the lunar soil. Collecting this in a mechanical way could throw up lots of dust that could harm equipment and astronauts health, as well as ruining the view. The answer may be to create a flexible tube with magnetic coils spaced at regular intervals along its length that could suck up the iron-heavy dust. The research was presented on Thursday at the Lunar and Planetary Society Conference in Houston, Texas. Another study suggests burying lunar habitats with packaged moon dust could help regulate their temperature. On the airless Moon, the surface bakes to over 100 Celsius during the day and plunges to a frigid -150 C at night."
If you built the walls of the habitats with the magnetic coils then they would attract the dust and bury themselves, solving both the dust and the thermal regulation problems in one go.
"Luck is a tag given by the mediocre to account for the accomplishments of genius." -Heinlein
just put carpets around it...how much is it? 2$ a sq foot here? and vacuum ones in a while...
So the astronomers like a little junk in the magnetic trunk?
Because we are completely incapable of doing more than one thing at a time. Amirite?
But really... I have never been very adventurous.
Evidently.
Mine has always collected a lot of dust.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
So, will the astronauts keep their base clean using autonomous robotic, magnetic vacuum cleaners called Moonbas?
How the hell is this going to be a problem - especially the part about ruining the view - when dust on the moon falls back to the ground at the same speed as a dropped hammer.
Question everything
Yes, astronauts should be focused on solving world hunger and curing AIDS in Africa, and not this silly space travel stuff they were trained for.
There's an interesting story on the BBC site. Apparently you can microwave the lunar dust and get it to fuse together. Robots could prepare the surface before the humans arrive and make it safer.
Have you been living under a rock or are you just completely retarded?
AFAIK We've been to the moon...several times...Whoever modded you "Interesting" is a moron. I would much rather see us spend money on things like this than billions of dollars invading other countries for oil. *cough* Iraq War *cough*
Bite my shiny metal ass.
I can't find any references to lunar regolith being radioactive.
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Why not just build large datacenters on the moon?
Seriously, we can power it all with solar power, and host all of our websites there. The lag isn't so bad (rougly 2 seconds to get a packet back at lightspeed). The heat from the machines could be used to warm up habitable spaces in the shade.
Best yet, all those computers will just soak up the dust like a magnet. Or, perhaps they could just launch thousands of those air dust cans with the mission...
for sale
I'm a self-modifying sig virus
That looks a lot like a series of tubes to me. Forget moon dust. You can download entire books.
-1 not first post
We could not go to the savannah. Maybe focus on... problems up in the trees? Just a thought...
I can't imagine wanting to be anywhere that has a seasonal variation, large predators, and no physical contact with other primates. But really... I have never been very likely to evolve.
Never forget that the comfortable life you enjoy is possible because of the risks others have taken in the past.
Blank until
The lag isn't so bad (rougly 2 seconds to get a packet back at lightspeed).
Dude... have you ever tried playing Unreal Tournament 2004 online? Even a half second (500ms) packet lag puts you at such a severe disadvantage that its very hard to hit any moving target. A 2 second lag would be totally unplayable.
Perhaps you missed the word "or" in the subject?
Doesn't make the argument valid, though - if the money wouldn't go to space it still wouldn't go to helping poor countries.
A series of tubes that uses electrical energy. Ted Stevens wonders: Will it use IPv4 or IPv6?
Um, will magnets WORK on the moon?
That could be marketed as Off-site Backup that is out of this world!
Life needs more saving throws.
If the motivation was oil, why did the US not simply trade with Saddam? He would have been really happy to sell lots of oil and then spend it to buy weapons from Europe.
I am aware that 'the motivation was oil' has been repeated so many times that you may have quoted it just as an accepted fact, but it still does not make rational sense.
The problem with moon dust is that it's very abrasive and erodes anything very quickly, another problem is that it's mainly electrically charged.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Perhaps you missed the word "or" in the subject?
Granted, it's not too hard to figure it out but starting a sentence in the subject line and having it continue into the message is somewhat poor communications.
Not to come off as a grammar nazi but subject lines should contain subjects, the body of the post should be complete thoughts. There should be a clear and definite line between the two.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Will a vacuum even work inside a vacuum?
The lunar surface dust holds the records of millions, billions of years of impacts and other events at the lunar surface. Which in turn are records of object trajectories through the solar system, which leave fingerprints of their momentum in the 3D surface.
We certainly should be harvesting as much of the local resources for exploration and human colonization. But we should do as much as we can with current science and technology (which is quite a lot) to read those records and preserve their info before destroying them.
The Moon is a treasure among resources available to humans. Primarily for science, especially before we destroy the evidence. The mining and exploitation can wait a bit longer. That way, we can have both.
--
make install -not war
Or...
/ 2006-12-18-why-go.html
We could not go to the moon. Maybe focus on... problems on earth? Just a thought...
This cartoon illustrates the complete idiocy of that line of reasoning:
http://www.wellingtongrey.net/miscellanea/archive
read it and then slink away in embarrassment over your shortsighted, ultimately suicidal philosophy. People who think the way you do are basically just selfish. You demand to be made comfortable even though it means the death of your species in the long run. Do us all a favor and just DIAF. The rest of us want a brighter future.
unless the laws of the universe drastically change when getting close to the moon... why wouldn't they work?
the fact that the earth has it's own magnetic field has nothing to do with the smaller magnets on the surface of earth (and on the fridge) working or not.
All indicators show that the human race is selectively breeding itself for stupidity.
Discovery channel's study of the nerd:
...The sleeping pattern of the computer nerd is one of its own. Instead of following the pattern of the sun, he follows the pattern of the moon; this due largely to the fact that he can get better ping times of his home satellite dish, made out of a Pringles can and aluminum foil, than through conventional means...
.... but I noticed that there are hot and cold sides to the moon. Shifting with a lunar day/night cycle.
What would it take to harness the temp difference between these two sides to generate energy?
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
And moving pictures aren't possible, faster than sound travel will make your vehicle disintegrate, all kinds of fun things that are impossible! Don't fall victim to these hoaxes!
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I agree with your position on subject lines; I think just that the authors of short replies think filling in both makes the reply sort of redundant, since the subject usually summarizes it already.