Explanation: Why is the Moon so dusty? On Earth, rocks are weathered by wind and water, creating soil and sand. On the Moon, the history of constant micrometeorite bombardment has blasted away at the rocky surface creating a layer of powdery lunar soil or regolith. For the Apollo astronauts and their equipment, the pervasive, fine, gritty dust was definitely a problem. On the lunar surface in December 1972, Apollo 17 astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan needed to repair one of their rover's fenders in an effort to keep the rooster tails of dust away from themselves and their gear. This picture reveals the wheel and fender of their dust covered rover along with the ingenious application of spare maps, clamps, and a grey strip of "duct tape".
So if an approx 200kg lunar buggy was kicking up rooster tails of dust what will happen if they try to land a Starship with a lot more mass?
Will the likely huge amount of powdery dust it kicks up on launch and landing be a problem? Or because of the lack of atmosphere will it settle quickly?
Re: APOD: Lunar Dust and Duct Tape (2021 May 29)
Posted: Sat May 29, 2021 10:29 am
by heehaw
It is hard to decide which is a more horrible place for people to visit: Mars, or our own Moon. I'd take Antarctica any time!
Re: APOD: Lunar Dust and Duct Tape (2021 May 29)
Posted: Sat May 29, 2021 10:30 am
by Anortham@mymts.net
It appears that a fifty yer old negative taken using a Hasselblad is still visually appealing. What bothers me is they threw them away to get off the moon. What type of film did they use? Probably 100 ASA Kodak VPS.
Re: APOD: Lunar Dust and Duct Tape (2021 May 29)
Posted: Sat May 29, 2021 12:56 pm
by orin stepanek
Taking a Spin in my Merry Lunamobile!
Seems I saw this photo; or one like it a long, long time ago!
Isn't that dust pretty sharp?
I believe I asked once if the dust could be used to grow plants in;
and someone answered that it was very fertile! But that was a long
time ago also!
Re: APOD: Lunar Dust and Duct Tape (2021 May 29)
Posted: Sat May 29, 2021 1:00 pm
by Chris Peterson
RocketRon wrote: ↑Sat May 29, 2021 4:50 am
Interesting 'making do' detail there.
A diversion, but what tyre pressure would those tyres be using ?
Tyres carried in aircraft need to be deflated or they may explode at altitude,
so space/moon tyres would be an order of magnitude above that ?
If you look closely you can see that the tires are a sort of open wire mesh. But there's no reason you couldn't use ordinary pneumatic tires on the Moon, and there's no reason they wouldn't be carrying the same pressure they would on Earth. It would simply require less air to fill them to that pressure.
Compare that situation with high altitude balloons, which look practically empty at launch but which are bulging spheres at full height. It's not the pressure of the gas they are managing, but the volume.
Re: APOD: Lunar Dust and Duct Tape (2021 May 29)
Posted: Sat May 29, 2021 1:46 pm
by Chris Peterson
APOD Robot wrote: ↑Sat May 29, 2021 4:05 am
This picture reveals the wheel and fender of their dust covered rover along with the ingenious application of spare maps, clamps, and a grey strip of "duct tape".
Why is "duct tape" in scare quotes? I mean, that's the actual name of the stuff.
And while I appreciate the adaptability of the astronauts in their unusual environment, "ingenious" might be a bit of an overstatement here. Not like I haven't seen plenty of temporarily repaired fenders and body panels that utilized a bit of cardboard and duct tape.
Re: APOD: Lunar Dust and Duct Tape (2021 May 29)
Posted: Sat May 29, 2021 1:47 pm
by E Fish
Whenever I see pictures of the lunar soil, I always think of a novel by Arthur C. Clarke called "A Fall of Moondust", written in 1961, before any of the Moon landings. How nice for the astronauts that the dust isn't like it was in that novel. It's still a problem, but they're not going to sink in an avalanche of it.
Duct tape does not save the day in the novel.
Re: APOD: Lunar Dust and Duct Tape (2021 May 29)
Posted: Sat May 29, 2021 1:56 pm
by Chris Peterson
E Fish wrote: ↑Sat May 29, 2021 1:47 pm
Whenever I see pictures of the lunar soil, I always think of a novel by Arthur C. Clarke called "A Fall of Moondust", written in 1961, before any of the Moon landings. How nice for the astronauts that the dust isn't like it was in that novel. It's still a problem, but they're not going to sink in an avalanche of it. :)
Duct tape does not save the day in the novel. :mrgreen:
There was, in fact, serious concern before the Apollo missions about the depth of the lunar regolith and whether sinking into it would be a problem.
APOD Robot wrote: ↑Sat May 29, 2021 4:05 am
This picture reveals the wheel and fender of their dust covered rover along with the ingenious application of spare maps, clamps, and a grey strip of "duct tape".
Why is "duct tape" in scare quotes? I mean, that's the actual name of the stuff.
And while I appreciate the adaptability of the astronauts in their unusual environment, "ingenious" might be a bit of an overstatement here. Not like I haven't seen plenty of temporarily repaired fenders and body panels that utilized a bit of cardboard and duct tape.
APOD Robot wrote: ↑Sat May 29, 2021 4:05 am
This picture reveals the wheel and fender of their dust covered rover along with the ingenious application of spare maps, clamps, and a grey strip of "duct tape".
Why is "duct tape" in scare quotes? I mean, that's the actual name of the stuff.
And while I appreciate the adaptability of the astronauts in their unusual environment, "ingenious" might be a bit of an overstatement here. Not like I haven't seen plenty of temporarily repaired fenders and body panels that utilized a bit of cardboard and duct tape.
I'm skeptical of the Wikipedia claim. In its current form it was developed for joining and sealing ductwork. However, as you suggest, that is probably irrelevant to the point that this is not a term that belongs in quotes, given that it's the conventional, generic term for the material.
Why is "duct tape" in scare quotes? I mean, that's the actual name of the stuff.
And while I appreciate the adaptability of the astronauts in their unusual environment, "ingenious" might be a bit of an overstatement here. Not like I haven't seen plenty of temporarily repaired fenders and body panels that utilized a bit of cardboard and duct tape.
I'm skeptical of the Wikipedia claim. In its current form it was developed for joining and sealing ductwork. However, as you suggest, that is probably irrelevant to the point that this is not a term that belongs in quotes, given that it's the conventional, generic term for the material.
Maybe it's because they weren't using it for ducts? It's still unnecessary quotes since few people who use duct tape use it for ductwork, but perhaps that's the reason?
Re: APOD: Lunar Dust and Duct Tape (2021 May 29)
Posted: Sat May 29, 2021 4:28 pm
by DL MARTIN
A seeming concern when Armstrong piloted the Eagle to the moon's surface was whether the vehicle was going to sink out of sight. At least to the lay public this seemed to be the case. Whether the Houston crew knew better, but let the drama percolate, is something I've never known.
Re: APOD: Lunar Dust and Duct Tape (2021 May 29)
Posted: Sat May 29, 2021 7:30 pm
by Aeroflake123
Interesting choice of date to post an Apollo mission photo. Today is President Kennedy's birthday. He'd have been 104.
Re: APOD: Lunar Dust and Duct Tape (2021 May 29)
Posted: Sat May 29, 2021 9:39 pm
by neufer
DL MARTIN wrote: ↑Sat May 29, 2021 4:28 pm
A seeming concern when Armstrong piloted the Eagle to the moon's surface was whether the vehicle was going to sink out of sight. At least to the lay public this seemed to be the case. Whether the Houston crew knew better, but let the drama percolate, is something I've never known.
<<The Surveyor program was a NASA program that, from June 1966 through January 1968, sent seven robotic spacecraft to the surface of the Moon. The program was implemented by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to prepare for the Apollo program. Its primary goal was to demonstrate the feasibility of soft landings on the Moon. The Surveyor craft were the first American spacecraft to achieve soft landing on an extraterrestrial body. The missions called for the craft to travel directly to the Moon on an impact trajectory, a journey that lasted 63 to 65 hours, and ended with a deceleration of just over three minutes to a soft landing.
Five of the Surveyor craft successfully soft-landed on the Moon, including the first one. The other two failed: Surveyor 2 crashed at high velocity after a failed mid-course correction, and Surveyor 4 lost contact (possibly exploding) 2.5 minutes before its scheduled touch-down. All seven spacecraft are still on the Moon; none of the missions included returning them to Earth. Some parts of Surveyor 3 were returned to Earth by the crew of Apollo 12, which landed near it in 1969.>>
I'm skeptical of the Wikipedia claim. In its current form it was developed for joining and sealing ductwork. However, as you suggest, that is probably irrelevant to the point that this is not a term that belongs in quotes, given that it's the conventional, generic term for the material.
Maybe it's because they weren't using it for ducts? It's still unnecessary quotes since few people who use duct tape use it for ductwork, but perhaps that's the reason?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duct_tape wrote:
<<"Duck tape" is recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary as having been in use since 1899; During World War II, Revolite (then a division of Johnson & Johnson) developed an adhesive tape made from a rubber-based adhesive applied to a durable duck cloth backing. This tape resisted water and was used to seal some ammunition cases during that period.
Cotton duck (from Dutch: doek, "linen canvas"), also simply duck, sometimes duck cloth or duck canvas, is a heavy, plain woven cotton fabric. Duck canvas is more tightly woven than plain canvas. Cotton duck is used in a wide range of applications, from sneakers to painting canvases to tents to sandbags. There is also linen duck, which is less often used.
The discovery of dyed flax fibers in a cave in Southeastern Europe (present-day Georgia) dated to 36,000 years ago suggests that ancient people used wild flax fibers to create linen-like fabrics from an early date. Fragments of straw, seeds, fibers, yarns, and various types of fabrics, including linen samples, dating to about 8,000 BC have been found in Swiss lake dwellings. Woven flax textile fragments have been "found between infant and child" in a burial at Çatalhöyük, a large settlement dating to around 7,000 BC.
In ancient Egypt, linen was used for mummification and for burial shrouds. It was also worn as clothing on a daily basis; white linen was worn because of the extreme heat. For example, the Tarkhan dress, considered to be among the oldest woven garments in the world and dated to between 3482 and 3102 BC, is made of linen. Plutarch wrote that the priests of Isis also wore linen because of its purity. When the tomb of the Pharaoh Ramses II, who died in 1213 BC, was discovered in 1881, the linen wrappings were in a state of perfect preservation after more than 3000 years.[citation needed] When the tomb of Tutankhamen was opened, the linen curtains were found to be intact.
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Interviewer: And duct tape works in the vacuum of space as well as it does here?
Walker: Oh, yes. Yes, it does. It sticks.
— Charles D. Walker, describing duct tape's use on STS-51-D
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According to NASA engineer Jerry Woodfill, a 52-year NASA veteran, duct tape had been stowed on board every mission since early in the Gemini program. NASA engineers and astronauts have used duct tape in the course of their work, including in some emergency situations. One such usage occurred in 1970 when Woodfill was working in Mission Control, when the square carbon dioxide filters from Apollo 13's failed command module had to be modified to fit round receptacles in the lunar module, which was being used as a lifeboat after an explosion en route to the moon. A workaround used duct tape and other items on board Apollo 13, with the ground crew relaying instructions to the flight crew. The lunar module's CO2 scrubbers started working again, saving the lives of the three astronauts on board. Ed Smylie, who designed the scrubber modification in just two days, said later that he knew the problem was solvable when it was confirmed that duct tape was on the spacecraft: "I felt like we were home free," he said in 2005. "One thing a Southern boy will never say is, 'I don't think duct tape will fix it.'">>
Lunar Dust and Duct Tape
