Posted on 05/28/2015 4:02:36 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The surface of the Moon is covered with a fine powdery material that scientists refer to it as “lunar regolith”. Nearly the entire lunar surface is covered with regolith, and bedrock is only visible on the walls of very steep craters.
The Moon regolith was formed over billions of years by constant meteorite impacts on the surface of the Moon. Scientists estimate that the lunar regolith extends down 4-5 meters in some places, and even as deep as 15 meters in the older highland areas.
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However, landings performed by robotic Surveyor spacecraft showed that the lunar soil was firm enough to support a spacecraft, and astronauts later explained that the surface of the Moon felt very firm beneath their feet. During the Apollo landings, the astronauts often found it necessary to use a hammer to drive a core sampling tool into it.
Once astronauts reached the surface, they reported that the fine moon dust stuck to their spacesuits and then dusted the inside of the lunar lander. The astronauts also claimed that it got into their eyes, making them red; and worse, even got into their lungs, giving them coughs. Lunar dust is very abrasive, and has been noted for its ability to wear down spacesuits and electronics.
The reason for this is because lunar regolith is sharp and jagged. This is due to the fact that the Moon has no atmosphere or flowing water on it, and hence no natural weathering process.
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As NASA is working on plans to send humans back to the Moon in the coming years, researchers are working to learn the best ways to work with the lunar regolith. Future colonists could mine minerals, water, and even oxygen out of the lunar soil, and use it to manufacture bases with as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
Extracting Water From the Moon With Basic Home Appliances
by Nancy Atkinson on October 6, 2008
http://www.universetoday.com/19244/extracting-water-from-the-moon-with-basic-home-appliances/
The opposite of Lunar Monolith?
Moon dirt is mostly pulverized glass. You don’t want to breathe it and would be pretty hard to grow things in.
That would be a polylith or a multilith
Depending where sampled, it is shock pulvarized basalt or anorthosite, mixed with microscopic vitric spherules resulting from impact remelt.
Thanks in part to “From the Earth to the Moon”, I understood that :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon_%28miniseries%29
It might be a cool science experiment. However it is noticeably expensive to even pump liquid water out of a well from several hundred feet under the surface of Earth. It would be nearly prohibitive, energy-wise, to sublimate the water that resides deep under the surface as super-cold ice. It would require either a nuclear reactor (not going to happen any time soon) or a huge solar array. Cost of that water would be extreme; you'd be paying several kWh of power for every drop of water. The collection equipment is also something to have in mind... the plastic sheet from Home Depot won't really work in vacuum. You'd have to heat the entire block of soil, tens of feet deep, from -100C to 0C if you want gaseous water on the surface. I don't think we can do it even on Earth.
All in all, these attempts to set up a base on the Moon or Mars are probably not going to work. The technology is just not there yet, and the practical need is nowhere in sight. Colonization of another planet will require combined resources of the whole Earth and, outside of one-way trips, won't become realistic for another 100 years. Key factors in that timeline will be the new physics, new propulsion methods, and much cheaper spaceflight.
Interesting.
Thank you!
Oh, you said reg-olith, oops!
OTOH, the Moon does out-gas, according to geologists at Brown University, studying the surface in detail. Granted, they estimated at least as late as 10,000 years ago.
Just a note of interest, the closest thing resembling moondust that most humans are likely to encounter in their day-to-day lives is a freshly opened bag of portland cement.
“OTOH, the Moon does out-gas, “
Ironically, I’ve been often told my moons outgas as well.
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“Regolith” is, on earth, the layer of roughly weathered and fractured rock lying just over competent bedrock. Above that here is soil, formed through the action of chemical and biological processes.
Without liquid water and an atmosphere on the moon, the only material on the surface is the coarse to ever finely crushed rock derived from whatever type of bedrock is in the vicinity, sprinkled with the detritus of larger local and regional impact activities.
One of the fears was that the lander would simply sink.
I was thinking DE. You don’t want to inhale those little glass shards.
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