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Moon

Researchers Finally Measured Radiation Levels On the Moon. They're High. (upi.com) 180

Slashdot reader DevNull127 writes: Scientists were able to, for the first time, measure radiation levels on the lunar surface, reports UPI, and nine days ago they published their results: that the radiation levels on the moon are 200 times stronger than on earth — and 2.6 times higher than those on the International Space Station. One of the scientists behind the study calls that exposure level "considerable." On the moon there's radiation from galactic cosmic rays, from solar particle events, and also a third component from the interaction of that radiation with the lunar soil.

"We humans are not really made to withstand space radiation," study co-author Robert Wimmer-Schweingruber, a researcher at Kiel University in Germany, tells UPI. "However, astronauts can and should shield themselves as far as possible during longer stays on the moon, for example by covering their habitat with a thick layer of lunar soil."

Or, as Business Insider puts it, "Scientists say a lunar base should be built underground to protect astronauts." Wimmer-Schweingruber tells them that "If you think about people staying on the moon for extended periods of time — say, on a scientific research station for a year or two — then these levels start getting problematic. Covering your habitat with sufficient amounts of lunar dirt should do the trick.... Ideally you'd like to be under as much material as is equivalent to Earth's atmosphere," Wimmer-Schweingruber said, adding that "an optimal depth is 30 inches of lunar soil."

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Researchers Finally Measured Radiation Levels On the Moon. They're High.

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  • You need it anyway, and it might as well sheild you.

    • Yah, just don't drink it...
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Safe to drink, but then you don't have shielding anymore.
          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • Why did you single out drinking as a way to delete radiation shielding while ignoring other uses?

              Because it's the most common assumption. And it was likely a joke, much like this idea. Water sitting in a bladder, protecting me from deadly radiation? Bad enough we have to worry about maintaining air to breathe. Now we have to worry about something that will eventually leak?

              Enough of the pressurized space pen solutions. Grab a fucking pencil already and dig a hole in the ground. Simple, and effective.

              • Or alternately, just bury your habitat in sand and gravel after construction, which could be a lot easier than building something underground early on, and has the advantages of allowing the floor plan to be level with the surrounding landscape, and allowing for strategically placed windows to let in indirect sunlight.

                So long as the primary living space doesn't have line-of-sight with the sky radiation won't be a problem - just don't spend a lot of time in the areas where you can look out the windows, unles

              • by cusco ( 717999 ) <brian@bixby.gmail@com> on Monday October 05, 2020 @10:05AM (#60573984)

                There are lava tubes on both the Moon and Mars that run for hundreds of kilometers, and because of the lower gravity and other factors can be as much as a couple of kilometers wide. Glassify or otherwise seal the inside of a section, put an airlock on either end, and you have an enormous already prepared radiation-protected home. (Obviously nothing is a easy in real life, but the concept is sound.)

                What I would love to see is the winner of the DARPA Underground Challenge have their robots sent to explore lunar lava tubes.
                https://www.subtchallenge.com/ [subtchallenge.com]

                Let military funding do something useful for a change.

          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Safe to drink, but then you don't have shielding anymore.

            Those pesky details when you actually build and run something. Cannot be thinking of them now, somebody may accuse us of actually doing halfway competent engineering!

          • Safe to drink, but then you don't have shielding anymore.

            They could converse water by using low-flow toilets.

            At $10k per liter, a 1.6 gal flush would only cost $60k.

            • A long drop toilet would work in the Moon's low gravity - no need to flush $$$ down the drain.
            • by jbengt ( 874751 )

              At $10k per liter, a 1.6 gal flush would only cost $60k.

              Today's "low-flow" toilets are down to 1.28 gal/flush.

      • Research can take its toll, Guess an occasional doobie For an escape no big deal if they are high as long as done safely, in moderation and does not hinder work and health.
    • by Antique Geekmeister ( 740220 ) on Sunday October 04, 2020 @11:37PM (#60572940)

      It would be difficult to maintain: the surface temperatures on most of the moon range from 250 degrees Fahrenheit in lunar daylight to less than 200 degrees Fahrenheit during the lunar night. Preventing it from evaporating under zero pressure means enclosing it. I think it would be far safer to store slightly away from the base, in container, and to tap as needed. Digging down even slightly would help with controlling the habitat's temperature during the 4 terran week long lunar day, without the risk of leaks in the habitat ceiling letting in the water supply.

      • Forgive me, that should have red "less than -200 degrees Fahrenheit during the lunar night". Temperature extremes on the moon are quite profound.

      • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        You can generate energy real cheap on the moon, at the equator, one side in the dark and the other in the light, one really cold and the other really hot, all you need is something to boil within the desired temperature range. Likely best spots the walls of deep craters close to the night time day time horizon, even right on it, so you can look at the earth and out into space at the same time, close by remote equipment. The hole is already dug, you just need to fill it up over your self. Those crater walls

        • by pjt33 ( 739471 )

          Did you mean the poles or the terminator rather than the equator? But either way, I can't see how you could have fixed infrastructure stradding the terminator, because Luna is tidally locked to Earth, not to Sol. Or is your dark "side" buried and the light "side" on the surface, and you have various stations spaced along the equator so that some of them are always in sunlight?

        • I don't see how the equator has anything special to offer in that regard. Without an atmosphere, every part of the Moon gets the same intensity of light on a surface facing directly at the sun. And the poles offer a few locations that stay in continuous sunlight rather than facing a two week long night every month.

          You won't be able to deal with fixed solar collectors since the moon is constantly spinning through a slow day-night cycle, and thus the direction of the sun constantly changes, just like on Ear

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Water is a major life support resource for human survival, and an easily handled way to store oxygen for breathing and hydrogen and oxygen for use as rocket fuel. I'd anticipate that long-term rocket fuel storage would be as water, not as liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Try rethinking your idea.
          Water is a nice stable way of storing oxygen and hydrogen. But that very stability makes it useless as a fuel. You have to use a lot of energy to separate the oxygen and hydrogen. And frankly, if you have that energy available, you'd get better results by directly using the H2O as reaction mass in an ion drive.

          • Try rethinking your idea. Water is a nice stable way of storing oxygen and hydrogen. But that very stability makes it useless as a fuel. You have to use a lot of energy to separate the oxygen and hydrogen. And frankly, if you have that energy available, you'd get better results by directly using the H2O as reaction mass in an ion drive.

            I think you need to consider where the energy and equipment for conversion reside, vs where the resulting fuel gets used.

            It's far easier to have a fueling station on the lunar surface that has water for long-term storage, an energy source for conversion, and smaller tanks for short-term storage of separated O and H (fuel). You use energy from a solar farm or nuclear or whatever to split the water into fuel on the surface.

            The rocket burns the H and O, but doesn't need to carry the conversion baggage. It's

      • by jcochran ( 309950 ) on Monday October 05, 2020 @08:01AM (#60573636)

        Water is an extremely mass efficient radiation shielding material. There are basically three types of radiation. They are:

        1. High energy photons. Aka gamma rays. For this, you want electrons. The more the better.
        2. Fast charged particles. Aka alpha and beta radiation. For this class of radiation, you want charged particles such as either electrons or protons.
        3. Fast neutrons. This type is a problem. For your radiation shield to work, the radiation needs to interact with the shield material and in the process loose energy to the shielding and then have the energy converted to heat. Neutrons are ... well neutral. So you want them to physically interact and for that you want targets of about the same mass such as hydrogen atoms. If a neutron hits a hydrogen nucleus, almost all of its energy goes into the nucleus, which then goes shooting off. And since the nucleus is a charged particles, it interacts with the rest of the shielding and stops. But if a neutron hits a heavier nucleus such as lead, it bounces off in a different direction with close to its original energy.

        Looking at the above, it's evident you want a material with a lot of isolated protons and a relatively low percentage of neutrons. Hydrogen is close to 100% protons and electrons. Lighter elements are close to 50% protons and electrons. Heavy elements such as lead are about 30%.

        From a mass perspective, water is far better than lead for radiation shielding against all forms of radiation. But from a volume perspective, lead is better than water. But the real winner is what ever you can obtain the cheapest in sufficient quantity, such as keep piling the dirt on your shelter until you have enough shielding

    • Only against neutrons. Radiation in space, or at least the bits you need to worry about, is mostly gammas and protons.
  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday October 04, 2020 @11:31PM (#60572930)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • If the soil is radioactive, then, no.
  • But then people might be bothered by the symbolism.

  • It would be difficult to maintain: the surface temperatures on most of the moon range from 250 degrees Fahrenheit in lunar daylight to less than 200 degrees Fahrenheit during the.Tofind Your Age :Fing Your Age [tophowmanydayssince.com]
  • Shut up (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 )

    So I was bored waiting on a centrifuge and playing around with diamagnetic levitation (pyrolytic graphite+neodymium magnets) the other day in my lab and thought wouldn't it be cool to be in Shackleton crater on a superconducting maglev track? Seriously, I think that's a possible thing btw. Shackleton crater is consistently below 100 kelvin .. Bi-2223 is superconducting at 108Kelvin .. it should work. All you need is a track of magnets and a cart with BSSCO underneath it. You can probably make other interest

    • > wouldn't it be cool to be in Shackleton crater on a superconducting maglev track? Shackleton crater is consistently below 100 kelvin.

      Yeah it would be *cool* alright.
      I've lived in Colorado; that's cold enough. You can have Shackleton.

    • So I was bored waiting on a centrifuge and playing around with diamagnetic levitation (pyrolytic graphite+neodymium magnets) the other day in my lab and thought wouldn't it be cool to be in Shackleton crater on a superconducting maglev track? Seriously, I think that's a possible thing btw. Shackleton crater is consistently below 100 kelvin .. Bi-2223 is superconducting at 108Kelvin .. it should work. All you need is a track of magnets and a cart with BSSCO underneath it.

      Stick that maglev cart on a banked circle and you've got a higher g habitat for sleeping/exercise/whatever.

  • Bad idea (Score:5, Funny)

    by Stormwatch ( 703920 ) <[moc.liamtoh] [ta] [oarigogirdor]> on Sunday October 04, 2020 @11:47PM (#60572960) Homepage

    You shouldn't do important scientific work while consuming drugs.

  • by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Sunday October 04, 2020 @11:50PM (#60572970)

    Researchers Finally Measured Radiation Levels On the Moon. They're High.

    The researchers or the radiation levels?

  • > Researchers Finally Measured Radiation Levels On the Moon. They're High.

    What were/are the researchers high on?

  • by tttonyyy ( 726776 ) on Monday October 05, 2020 @12:19AM (#60573034) Homepage Journal

    Fortunately there already exists massive underground cave systems on the moon.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]

    Presumably these are adequately deep to block the majority of radiation.

  • by quenda ( 644621 ) on Monday October 05, 2020 @01:18AM (#60573112)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    Project Gnome created a 28,000 cubic-metre cavern using a 3 kiloton thermonuclear device.
    You might think this would defeat the purpose of avoiding radiation, but only 6 months later, scientists were able to enter the cavern, and found only 6 milli-roentgen.
    (Remember 3.6 roentgen, was considered "not great, not terrible")

  • Who had radioactive moon monsters for October?
  • First time radiation measurement? Did nobody carry a geiger counter on the crewed lunar landings?

  • It seems hard to believe we would send astronauts to the Moon without checking the radiation first.
  • by LordWabbit2 ( 2440804 ) on Monday October 05, 2020 @06:15AM (#60573432)
    Bury yourself on the moon with hundreds of moonquakes, seems risky, but I suppose the structure could be built to help with that. If it only takes 30 inches of soil how much metal would do the same? Also 200x sounds high, but you would have to stand buck naked on the surface for 4 months to get a lifetimes dose of radiation, and if you are standing buck naked on the surface of the moon you have other issues to worry about.
  • by fygment ( 444210 ) on Monday October 05, 2020 @06:44AM (#60573462)

    ... required to live on our moon. Also pretty good story.

  • Researchers could have gotten the radiation results to us sooner if they weren't stoned.
  • Even the sun doesn't go away for half a month.

  • (Am I the only one that misses the Slashdot tag of thatsnomoon on every article even vaguely related to the moon?)

  • Researchers Finally Measured Radiation Levels On the Moon. They're High.

    The researchers, or the radiation levels?

    The English language can be quite confusing at times...

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • It varies a lot. Six months on the ISS can give you 0.05 to 2 sieverts. Or for we old school boys 5 to 200 rem. And yes, 200 rem is a fucking lot and makes detectable radiation poisoning effects in the body, and chances of cancers are.... pretty certain. 5 on the other hand is the NRC's limit for nuke plant workers, and plants target half of that for their workers. So, it's a lottery.

  • Am I the only one who read the headline as suggesting that the researchers were high when they measured the radiation levels on the moon?
  • by Max_W ( 812974 ) on Monday October 05, 2020 @09:50AM (#60573924)
    They knew that the radiation on the moon and on the way to the moon is too high for humans. It was decided once and for all that it is impossible to send humans to the moon due to the radiation. Instead they sent there a robotized rover https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    Even now, why fly humans to be irradiated there? To gain some publicity points? First, some robots are to be sent to dig a pit and to construct a safe underground station. And only then humans can fly there more or less safely.

    Otherwise it will be like hurting people knowingly, i.e. kind of immoral.
    • You spew nonsense. Of course ALL the Apollo missions measured radiation and the exposure of the astronauts was known, freely available online. For Apollo 7 though 15, the rads were:

      0.16, 0.16, 0.20, 0.48, 0.18, 0.58, 0.24, 1.14, and 0.30.

      All those are well within the limits of any nuke plant worker, and at a level with no detectable medical effects.

      Dose equals rad level multiplied by time. Keep time short, dose is low.

Factorials were someone's attempt to make math LOOK exciting.

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