Moon Dust Threat?

surfduke wrote:
See this link:

http://www.moondaily.com/reports/Wat...ndust_999.html

Looks like the Space 1999 Eagle Pad is out, (2001 dome covered elev.
pad is in, (LOL)). I have seen the camera on display, (but never read
about the study refer. to in this article).

Dust of 10+ meters in places, as worthy of such highly electrostatic
charged dust that's nearly sooty dark as coal, crystal dry and of
almost zilch worth of surface tension, isn't going to be exactly all
that easy to deal with.

They best plan on landing upon a basalt rock slope of nearly 45
degrees or better.
-- Brad Guth

On Nov 26, 12:48 pm, robert casey wrote:
surfduke wrote:
See this link:

http://www.moondaily.com/reports/Wat...ndust_999.html

And there's the issue of keeping moondust out of the lungs of
astronauts. When they go back inside after spending all day digging
around the outpost on the Moon, and come back in all dirty. Then the
dust falling off the suits as the astronauts undress once under air
pressure. It'd be a bit like breathing that dust and grit (containing
micro shards of window glass and gypsum sheetrock just after 911 at
Ground Zero in NYC).

Not a problem, as not even banked bone marrow is going to save their
moonsuit butts after such moonsuit naked EVAs.
-- Brad Guth

Scott Hedrick wrote:
Why not stand outside and let the vacuum suck it off?


I hope a Moon Calf eats you for that. ;-)

Pat

Rick Jones wrote:
An automated astronaut wash - smallish booth, first a dust-off, then
some gentle bristled rotating brushes, and perhaps some spray-wax at
the end to keep things shiny
Now I'm getting this image of a evergreen-shaped air freshener hanging
inside the astronaut's helmet. :-D

Pat

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

Ok smarty, and where would you plug in the vacuum cleaner?

It's not like 120V is common on the Moon.


Yeah, and what is the current phase?

Pat

I think that the suits could be stored in a decompressed area, with
entry from a rear, (hanging/connected to a pressurized room). This
would keep all the eva hardware outside of a shirtsleeve environment
in the lab/base. The dust would only be a exterior build-up problem
then. This could be handled with a quick scheduled brush off.

Just a idea,

Carl

surfduke wrote:
I think that the suits could be stored in a decompressed area, with
entry from a rear, (hanging/connected to a pressurized room). This
would keep all the eva hardware outside of a shirtsleeve environment
in the lab/base. The dust would only be a exterior build-up problem
then. This could be handled with a quick scheduled brush off.


That might be the ideal solution to the problem...and could be based on
current technology also, as the Russian suits use rear entry hatches
already.
There'd still be some dust on the back part of the suit with the hatch
on it that ended up inside base after the suit had "docked" with the
airlock, but that should be fixable by cleaning it one way or another
(compressed air and filter, a vacuum system, or hosing it down with
water) and the advantage would be that that section would have the have
the life support systems on it, like the Russian suits do, making for
easy servicing and replacement of its consumables.

Pat

It's not like 120V is common on the Moon.



Yeah, and what is the current phase?


:-)

I wonder if a ground rod driven into the Moon ground would actually do
anything. Here on Earth, the soil is usually wet, and that makes it
conductive. On the Moon, it could just be a metal rod sitting in a deep
bowl of glass marbles.

On Nov 27, 12:17 pm, robert casey wrote:
It's not like 120V is common on the Moon.

Yeah, and what is the current phase?

:-)

I wonder if a ground rod driven into the Moon ground would actually do
anything. Here on Earth, the soil is usually wet, and that makes it
conductive. On the Moon, it could just be a metal rod sitting in a deep
bowl of glass marbles.

And of micro glass, sodium and soot like powder that's physically
nearly as dark as coal, in places tens of meters deep with almost zero
worth of surface tension, but otherwise highly electrostatic charged
and naked reactive/anticathode worthy of making other soft-gamma and
hard X-rays to boot.
- Brad Guth

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...


surfduke wrote:
I think that the suits could be stored in a decompressed area, with
entry from a rear, (hanging/connected to a pressurized room). This
would keep all the eva hardware outside of a shirtsleeve environment
in the lab/base. The dust would only be a exterior build-up problem
then. This could be handled with a quick scheduled brush off.


That might be the ideal solution to the problem...and could be based on
current technology also, as the Russian suits use rear entry hatches
already.

This is one of the things I've seen in some preliminary studies. The
advantage here is that you lose very little air when you go on an EVA since
the only air you need to depressurize is between the suit's rear hatch and
the hatch on the airlock.

There'd still be some dust on the back part of the suit with the hatch on
it that ended up inside base after the suit had "docked" with the airlock,
but that should be fixable by cleaning it one way or another (compressed
air and filter, a vacuum system, or hosing it down with water) and the
advantage would be that that section would have the have the life support
systems on it, like the Russian suits do, making for easy servicing and
replacement of its consumables.

Or you design the airlock hatch so that it covers the suit hatch completely,
so that lunar dust never has the opportunity to get into the airlock to
begin with.

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein