NASA Needs Fake Moon Dust

crisco writes "NASA's renewed interest in lunar exploration and 'in situ resource utilization,' or ISRU, is driving the need for tons of carefully faked lunar dust and sand for testing purposes: 'We don't have enough real moondust to go around,' says Larry Taylor, director of Planetary Geosciences Institute at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. To run all the tests, "we need to make a well-qualified lunar simulant.' And not just a few bags will do. 'We need tons of it, mainly for working on technologies for diggers and wheels and machinery on the surface,' adds David S. McKay, chief scientist for astrobiology at the Johnson Space Center (JSC)."

ash

[hurfy]

I thought that huge pile of ash from Mt St Helens was a close substitute.

Aren't there still piles of it at the end of the ?Toutle? river. Used to be tons and tons of it stacked up by I-5. I'll bet the price is right too ;)

Heck maybe it is worse than lunar dust and they can overbuild the vehicles a bit to get thru it :)

I swear I've heard this one already.

[Kadin2048]

You joke, but I absolutely remember hearing this same thing a few years ago. I think it was possibly more than five or six years back. Probably it was on NPR.

I haven't read TFA, but in the story I remember hearing, NASA used to have literally thousands of pounds of moon rock and dust from the Apollo missions, but over the years it's been parceled out for various purposes (including being given to school kids, etc.) and now they only have a few pounds left. They want someone to come up with a simulated sand so they can test how it gets into bearings and stuff.

What I'd like to know is why is this still an issue? If it was a problem five or six years ago, you'd think they'd have gotten around to solving it by now. And yet it's still being discussed as if it was a new problem. Then again, I guess this is NASA we're talking about.

The last time I heard about this, the closest moon-dust simulacrum was some type of pulverized volcanic ash. My immediate question was whether you could really simulate the lunar surface using Earth gravity -- even if you were using real moon dust, it seems like its effects on equipment would be radically different on the moon, than it would be here. Here on Earth you have humidity and various atmospheric effects, plus gravity, that could affect how the dust gets into bearings and other components; all of these wouldn't exist on the moon. It seems like if you want to test parts for use on the moon, you'd need something that's not the same as moon dust here on earth.

Re:Diatomaceous earth?

[rucs_hack]

would that be fine enough though. The stuff they need would need to be the same as material that had been pounded by meteorites for billions of years and irradiated for that long too.

Wasn't it found to be very fine and thus 'sticky'.

I suspect some heavy industrial processing would be required to replicate it. However, without the same gravitational field it would behave differently anyhow, so a less accurate analogue would likely suffice.

How close is volcanic ash?

[istartedi]

It's quite abundant, and I'm sure there are some places in the Phillipines or maybe even our own Mt. St. Helens area where they've still got excess and would be happy to get rid of it. If that doesn't fit the bill, how hard is it to find rocks of the same composition as the moon, and grind them up?

Re:why not use...

[Overzeetop]

If the lunar surface is primarily aluminum oxide of some form (not that it is, but that sounds kind of right) then is will be both durable and abrasive. If testing is required to determine life expectancies of both operating equipment and excavation/drilling machinery then they will need to replicate both the particle size, distribution (in terms of seive percentages) and durability/hardness.

Excuse me...I need to go start my RFP paperwork...

Re:Armstrong describes the Lunar soil

[agent0range_]

As I understand the lunar dust is much "rougher" as it hasn't been polished by the same forces (eg: wind and water), which causes it to stick to just about everything.

The Effects of Lunar Dust on EVA Systems During the Apollo Missions [nasa.gov]

"the effects could be sorted into nine categories: vision obscuration, false instrument readings, dust coating and contamination, loss of traction, clogging of mechanisms, abrasion, thermal control problems, seal failures, and inhalation and irritation. Although simple dust mitigation measures were sufficient to mitigate some of the problems (i.e., loss of traction) it was found that these measures were ineffective to mitigate many of the more serious problems (i.e., clogging, abrasion, diminished heat rejection). The severity of the dust problems were consistently underestimated by ground tests, indicating a need to develop better simulation facilities and procedures."

I wonder how someone could manufacture "fake moon dust" here on earth. Meh, at least I can sleep at night knowing this isn't my problem.

Re:I swear I've heard this one already.

[Gordonjcp]

Fine dust clumps up differently in a vacuum, and becomes incredibly hard. There's no air to get between the grains, y'see. Think about the crufty stuff that builds up on your PC case fans, then imagine it with all the air squeezed out...

Re:Bad astronomy debunking url

[Anonymous Coward]

As I've explained to numerous people on numerous occasions the government didn't fake the moon landing, but the footage that they showed was a fake. The logic is that for any publicly broadcast event it makes more sense to create a fake version for the public's consumption and keep the real tape under wraps so that they can make sure that everything they show the public is consistent and study the inconsistent real footage for...inconsistencies.

This message won't self destruct, but it'd be boring to read it again, so just forget it exists.

Re:Bad astronomy debunking url

[Peet42]

In the erarly days of UK Channel 4 they had a documentary on the "faking" of the moon landings. For the first two segments they brought on all sorts of conspiracy theorists who showed photos of the landing and explained why the lighting and shadows just couldn't fall the way they did, how features were in front of "registration marks" etc.; pretty much the same arguments you hear nowadays.

The third segment was the memorable one, though. They brought on someone from NASA to refute their claims. Not an astronaut. Not a scientist. An airbrush artist from their "Educational Outreach" initiative. :-)

He looked at all their "proof" and said "I airbrushed every one of those photos for distribution around US Schools in the 1970s, and the airbrushed versions are the ones that have been doing the rounds in the Public Domain ever since. I put the detail into that boot sole. I joined two photos together there, which is why you see that rock twice..." And so on.

Basically he said "If you lot hadn't been too cheapskate to pay $10 for copies from the original negatives instead of analysing non-scientific publicity materials this conspiracy theory would never have started."

That documentary was over 20 years ago now, yet still the theories continue.