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The Dusty Concern for the Mission to Mars
eldavojohn writes "Astronauts sent to the red planet may find much of their job involving the task of dusting off their equipment and suits. The president says we're going there but the dusty planet has some obstacles and uncertainties for engineers because we don't have a sample of Martian dust. Is it toxic? Will it conduct electricity and short circuits? Will astronauts suffer from the triboelectric effect? How large is the average grain? Will humans be allergic to it? Will sinuses jeopardize a mission? Will a dust storm stop a take off and return flight? So many uncertainties from something as simple as dust but one thing is clear — we need samples!"
Actually, there's some body of work that describes a larger problem for Lunar explorers, although the Martian problem isn't anything to sneeze at, either. Pun intended.
As TFA points out, the lack of weathering processes on Luna leaves the dust/regolith mainly as sharp-edged grains, which actually gives them incredible abrasive power. This poses an enormous problem for mechanical assemblies that have any wear surfaces. The Apollo astronauts, IIRC, went through a couple pairs of suit gloves each simply from the wear of the dust on their metallic glove locking rings.
Martian dust might have a similar range of effects, but I hadn't heard of the "toxic dust" issue, yet; that's the interesting bit. Silicosis of the lungs and related disorders, yes; toxicity, no. Yikes.
Toxic dust makes me think of the blended iPhone. "Don't breathe this." Sorry, that's another article...
-joe.
Another as of yet unanswered question about Martian rock:
Will it blend?
(Sorry, but I just discovered the videos today, so my view of the universe if somewhat blendocentric)
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
"Dig a 1-foot deep hole in 30 seconds, as opposed to 30 years."
"Walk further than 100m per day"
"Walk into the bowl of a crater, poke around for interesting rocks, and carry the interesting rocks out."
"Immediately discern between 'interesting' and 'uninteresting' rocks without having to wait 24 hours to ask for new instructions."
No disrespect intended to our robot overlords; they've done wonderful work over the past few decades, but sometimes the right tool for a job is pickaxe powered by 200 pounds of meat.
Nope...the Mars Exploration Rovers' microscopic imagers can't resolve finely enough to measure grain size or geometry, and they have no way of measuring electrical properties. The Mars Surface Laboratory, to launch in 2009, will have slightly better resolution, but still not grain sized. In fact, I think in order to get a good idea what they finest grains look like, nothing short of an electron microscope will do. The rovers focus on geology and chemical composition, but not as much on things like dust geometry and electrical properties.
Regardless of whether or not its feasible to equip a lander to determine these properties itself, NASA and other groups would really like to get their hands directly on some Martian surface material, so a robotic sample return mission will very likely happen in the next 10-20 years regardless of whether plans move forward for manned exploration.
Can we stop pretending we're going to send astronauts to Mars? There's is no way we're going to spend the enormous amount of money required to do it, and we don't even know if the astronauts can survive the radiation exposure on the trip.
Besides the fact that it won't be done by any government in the next 30 years, it *shouldn't* be done. I've harped on this before, but it's still true: we could send 1,000 probes similar to the Mars Lander for the price it takes to do a P.R. stunt like sending humans to Mars. Yeah, it's romantic, but if the goal is science, then it's a total waste.
I like space. I'm a supporter of space. But I think humans should go on the back burner until space exploration is much, much, much more of a mature technology. We don't even have casual trips to orbit, much less the moon, much less significant space stations, and much, much less Mars.
Let's be rational about space exploration and let an army of robots do the work, instead of a few fragile, expensive humans.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Technically, the Mars Sample Return http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/technology/samplereturn/i ndex.html is a precursor mission (i.e., before manned landings) that's been "on the books", so to speak, for a while. It's a developmental mission model, having been bounced back-and-forth between front and back burners for a while, now, but the technology is all there. It's very expensive, as you can imagine, so that's part of the reason why it's not "ready" yet. Other reasons have to do with local infrastructure - we'd like to have a handle on good surface communications on Mars - and the fact that the science community can't really decide on a reasonable surface target. That's being helped by MER, and will really get a
good kick in the pants by the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), which will be launching in 2009.
Of course, the public have very varied opinions about this...for example,when you Google "Mars Sample Return" you still get http://www.icamsr.org/ as your first hit. Sheesh.
Uphill battle, maybe.
--joe.
NASA would be wise to also carefully contemplate what is inducing the dust to rise to form dust storms in the first place. They already have access to THEMIS images from the Mars Odyssey Mission that suggest that there is filamentation of Martian dust storms at both the leading and trailing edges. For a sample image (there are others too), go to:
t devils.htm
n adoes/insidetheeye.shtml
r ge_sheath_vortex_basics_for_tornado.html
0 06%20%203/sprite2006.3.13.html
P RITE/galleryhome.html
P RITE/Carrot/gscar01.html
http://themis.asu.edu/zoom-20060512a
Furthermore, we also know that Martian dust devils can contain lightning bolts at their cores:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/14jul_dus
In addition to that, we also know that firsthand accounts from people who have seen the inside of a tornado and lived to tell about it indicate that tornadoes here on Earth tend to shimmer like a fluorescent light from the inside. This is typically obstructed from the outside by dust. There's a brief mention here. I'm sure there are other sources for this information:
http://library.thinkquest.org/C003603/english/tor
This could indicate that tornadoes and Martian dust devils are actually both electrical plasmas, and that the electrical activity is inducing the vortex -- not the other way around.
It is possible that vortexes are the natural result of the right-hand rule within electrodynamics. Peter Thomson's Charge Sheath Vortex site is an excellent tutorial on how this may be so:
http://www.peter-thomson.co.uk/tornado/fusion/Cha
He demonstrates his point at the end by creating a miniature vortex using electricity in a petri dish.
My point here is that NASA should seriously consider that the Martian dust is molecularly bipolar and is responding to solar and other electrical plasmas that are affecting the Martian planet. The evidence from both Mars and Earth suggests that it is a possibility.
We already know for a fact that upper atmosphere lightning exists. The weather scientists told us that this was not possible, and they were proven to be wrong. It's now easy to find pictures of upper-atmosphere sprites on the web. Try these:
http://usjma.jp/~sprite/sprite2005.11pic.html
http://www.usjma.jp/~kaminari/Sprite%202006/S%202
http://www.usjma.jp/~kaminari/Gallery/Gallery%20S
http://www.usjma.jp/~kaminari/Gallery/Gallery%20S
So, why isn't it possible that they could also be wrong about current theories about tornadoes? And why in the world are those dust storms filamentary? When we see enigmatic features on Mars, we should create future missions to follow that data. As of recently, NASA has been exclusively following their script instead of the anomalies. We need to be doing both.
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
Apparently, there were many, many unanticipated problems with lunar "dust".
. stme id=51367
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6460089
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap980327.html
http://dailybeacon.utk.edu/showarticle.php?articl
As expected, enginerds never seem to want to underestimate a problem especially when they've heard of a similar problem before...
There are several much more significant challenges than dust:
* The lack of any kind of spaceship capable of making the return trip
* The lack of any kind of system for keeping the crew alive in space for that long
* The lack of any serious programme to develop the above
* The lack of the money such a programme would require
* The lack of the political will to address any of the points above
* The lack of public interest in any of the points above *this* point
Overall, I think it's probably not a good idea to burn Earth yet.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
That's a wonderful idea. Someone should just go tell the computer scientists and engineers to get their thumbs out of their asses and invent us some artificial intelligence, since obviously all they do now is sit around playing D & D and doing bong hits.
The sheer vision - it borders on godlike.