Will dust prevent us living on the Moon?

[Judi Lynn]

SPACE
David Szondy
an hour ago

If astronauts are ever going to return to the Moon, they must come to terms with the hazards of the lunar environment. To combat a major threat to astronaut health and technology, ESA is conducting a major study of moon dust to determine how dangerous it is and how to counter its effects on humans and machines.

Even before Neil Armstrong set foot on the Sea of Tranquility, scientists and engineers were concerned about the hazards of lunar dust. While rockets like the Saturn V were being tested for the first voyages to the Moon, there was a very real concern that moon dust would present an insurmountable barrier to lunar exploration.

The problem was that no one had a firm idea about what the surface of the Moon was like. Perhaps it was as firm as the great lava flats in Hawaii or Iceland. Or maybe the so-called seas and craters were filled with fine dust hundreds of meters deep in which any spaceship would vanish like a sash weight dropped in the ocean.

But what the Apollo astronauts found was unexpected and equally worrying. Instead of seas of liquid-like dust, they discovered that billions of years of micrometeorite impacts had coated the lunar surface with a fine layer of silicate dust that had a number of disturbing qualities.

More:
https://newatlas.com/dust-moon-living/55333/

[keithbvadu2]

1. Imagine landing down and wondering if you're just going to sink into the surface