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Magnetic Trunk Could Collect Moon Dust

Posted by Hemos on from the the-lunar-dustbuster dept.

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."

8 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Or do both by Ikyaat · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
    1. Re:Or do both by MattSparkes · · Score: 1, Funny

      Wouldn't that screw with instruments in the habitat? Also, any astronauts trying to leave and go do their experiments/play golf/drive around in a space buggy would stick to the outside of the dome.

      --
      Matthew Sparkes
  2. Moon junk? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    So the astronomers like a little junk in the magnetic trunk?

  3. Just get TV up there by Brad1138 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Mine has always collected a lot of dust.

    --
    If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
  4. Moonba by Radon360 · · Score: 3, Funny

    So, will the astronauts keep their base clean using autonomous robotic, magnetic vacuum cleaners called Moonbas?

  5. Computers by cyberbob2351 · · Score: 3, Funny

    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...

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    for sale
    I'm a self-modifying sig virus
    1. Re:Computers by Bastard+of+Subhumani · · Score: 5, Funny

      Why not just build large datacenters on the moon?
      Is there a server version of Vista? If so, that'll resolve the problem of how to suck in a vacuum.
      --
      Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
  6. Re:How the hell? by Control+Group · · Score: 1, Funny

    In point of fact, I agree with you - but I just couldn't resist the temptation to do a bit of orbital math. And, of course, I'm a pedantic jackass.

    --

    Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...