Posted on 04/10/2025 7:12:21 PM PDT by Red Badger
Martian dust may be more harmful to astronauts than the trip itself. (Photo by StudyFinds on Shutterstock AI Generator)
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In a nutshell
Martian dust poses serious health risks, especially to astronauts’ lungs, with particles small enough to penetrate deep into the respiratory system and potentially cause irreversible diseases like silicosis and aplastic anemia.
The dust is chemically hazardous, containing reactive compounds like perchlorates, silica, nanophase iron, and trace toxic metals that can disrupt thyroid function, damage tissues, and even increase infection risk due to weakened immune defenses in space.
Prevention is critical, as many dust-related conditions have no cure. Protective technologies like dust-repelling suits, habitat filters, and nutritional countermeasures are essential to keep astronauts safe on a multi-year Mars mission.
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LOS ANGELES — NASA wants to put boots on Mars in the coming decades. But before the first astronauts take that historic step, scientists are warning about an overlooked threat that could derail these ambitious plans: the dust covering the Martian surface.
A new scientific review in the journal GeoHealth warns that the fine particles blanketing Mars might seriously harm human explorers. The medical researchers, aerospace engineers, and planetary scientists from various American universities behind the study draw worrying connections between what happened to Apollo astronauts exposed to lunar dust and what future Mars travelers might experience, potentially with far worse consequences.
According to the authors, Mars dust particles are worryingly small, highly oxidative, and packed with chemicals that could damage the human body, especially the lungs. Unlike Earth dust, which gets worn down by wind and water, Martian particles have remained sharp and irregular, making them perfect for penetrating sensitive tissues.
The Apollo missions offered an early warning about space dust problems. Astronauts who visited the Moon complained about irritated eyes, sore throats, and coughing fits after dust stuck to their spacesuits and contaminated their living spaces. But those missions lasted just days.
Mars expeditions would be different, stretching for months or years with ongoing dust exposure. What’s more, the 40-minute communication delay between Earth and Mars means medical emergencies would need handling without immediate help from mission control. This isolation makes both the chances and consequences of dust-related illnesses much worse.
What Makes Mars Dust Toxic
What exactly makes Mars dust so dangerous? Based on rover and orbiter data, scientists have identified several harmful components. These include perchlorates (oxygen-rich compounds), silica, iron-rich particles, and gypsum, plus smaller amounts of potentially toxic metals including chromium, beryllium, arsenic, and cadmium.
Perchlorates might be the most immediately concerning. These chemicals, found all over Mars, can interfere with thyroid function by competing with iodide, potentially causing aplastic anemia, where the body stops producing enough new blood cells. In one Earth-based case, a patient given high doses of perchlorate developed severe anemia that led to infection susceptibility. Despite treatment with steroids and antibiotics, the patient died from a lung infection.
Nearly half of Mars dust consists of silica, which on Earth is known to cause silicosis, an incurable lung disease that progressively scars lung tissue. The Martian silica particles measure about 3 micrometers across, small enough to bypass the body’s defenses and reach deep into the lungs, where they trigger inflammation and scarring.
The iron compounds that give Mars its reddish color create another health threat. When these particles contact human tissue, they generate reactive oxygen species that damage cells. The excess iron might also make infections worse, as many disease-causing bacteria use iron to multiply inside the human body, particularly troubling since spaceflight already weakens astronauts’ immune systems.
Mars also experiences planet-wide dust storms that dramatically boost airborne particle levels. During these events, visibility drops to almost nothing while dust concentration in the atmosphere rises dramatically. Such conditions would make avoiding exposure nearly impossible during surface operations.
The vast distance from Earth magnifies these health risks. Apollo astronauts could head home quickly if they got sick, but Mars-bound crews would be committed to their mission for its entire duration, potentially two to three years. This reality makes prevention the main strategy, with treatment limited to whatever medications and equipment traveled from Earth.
Better spacesuit designs with self-cleaning abilities, robust air filters in habitats, and electrostatic devices to repel dust should form the first line of defense. For any dust that gets through, dietary supplements like potassium iodide might help protect against perchlorates, while vitamin C could offer some defense against chromium toxicity.
Unfortunately, many potential dust-caused diseases, especially silicosis and other forms of lung scarring, have no effective treatments beyond supportive care. This is why preventing exposure matters so much.
Most of these diseases target the breathing system, potentially causing different types of restrictive lung disease. Combined with the increased radiation during deep space travel and the body changes caused by low gravity, Mars dust could create a perfect storm of health problems.
Planning for Safety: The Road to Mars
As NASA’s Artemis program works to build a lasting human presence on the Moon, these lunar missions will test technologies for Mars trips, including dust protection systems. Additionally, the Mars Sample Return mission, though currently being reevaluated, could bring actual Martian material to Earth labs as early as the mid-to-late 2030s, allowing scientists to study the dust’s properties and toxicity directly.
For now, the authors stress that while human exploration of Mars represents an extraordinary potential achievement, it also brings unprecedented health challenges. Meeting these challenges will require experts across many fields, from geology and engineering to medicine and toxicology, working together to ensure astronauts can explore Mars safely. As we prepare to send people farther from Earth than ever before, addressing these risks is essential for keeping crews alive.
Sounds like they need to start contaminating mars with Lichen and Mosses and start to terraform it for future generations. (Or start taking care of this planet!)
So you are saying we cannot breath the air on Mars? Who would have thunk it?
I keep repeating this. Mars has no magnetosphere because it has no molten iron core. Thus solar radiation is not blocked. Thus we cannot live on the surface of Mars. If we tried it, the astronauts would soon come down with fatal cancer. Any colonization of Mars will have to be underground or under Domes to protect against the radiation.
So we hardly need worry about the effect of Martian dust on the lungs.
Yes
Those masks already are proof against viruses. Should easily be great against dust.
A murder will be committed inside the arriving generation.
Yes to the base, Eagle style transports, U shaped blaster, moon buggies but no bell bottom uniforms.
I like the B5 explanation of why to go out “there”.
https://youtu.be/gU41J86Rrg8?si=Hppz876R-q1FZp5C
Mandatory. Thanks for taking care of it.
Same problem though. Asbestos is an inert mineral, but people freak out about being anywhere near it. Like it’s somehow like nuclear radiation. Or any exposure at all will kill you.
Asbestos is only a problem if it is pulverized in just the right way and then you inhale that dust for an extended period of time so that a lot of it becomes embedded in your lungs and they can’t expel it.
There’s virtually no oxygen in the Martian atmosphere, and it’s so thin that the atmospheric pressure there is only 2% of the air pressure here on earth. Why would anyone be breathing it at all?
It won’t be safe underground, either. While the dust on the surface is pulverized by the atmospheric processes, the underground material will be in “pristine” condition and possibly more hazardous.
They must be really worried that Musk’s Mars program will be successful....
Nah, we just need to terraform Mars. Build some robo-tugs to haul icy comets to the planet.
MOMMA: Make Our Mars Moist Again!
Hilarious and subtle!
Not to Mars, anyway. We will one day be a space faring civilization.
When the Apollo astronauts returned from the Moon, the dust that clung to their spacesuits made their throats sore and their eyes water. Lunar dust is made of sharp, abrasive and nasty particles...
The “lunar hay fever”, as NASA astronaut Harrison Schmitt described it during the Apollo 17 mission created symptoms in all 12 people who have stepped on the Moon. From sneezing to nasal congestion, in some cases it took days for the reactions to fade.
“We don’t know how bad this dust is. It all comes down to an effort to estimate the degree of risk involved,” says Kim Prisk, a pulmonary physiologist from the University of California
Nasty dust
Lunar dust has silicate in it, a material commonly found on planetary bodies with volcanic activity. Miners on Earth suffer from inflamed and scarred lungs from inhaling silicate. On the Moon, the dust is so abrasive that it ate away layers of spacesuit boots and destroyed the vacuum seals of Apollo sample containers.
Fine like powder, but sharp like glass. The low gravity of the Moon, one sixth of what we have on Earth, allows tiny particles to stay suspended for longer and penetrate more deeply into the lung.
“Particles 50 times smaller than a human hair can hang around for months inside your lungs. The longer the particle stays, the greater the chance for toxic effects,” explains Kim.
The potential damage from inhaling this dust is unknown but research shows that lunar soil simulants can destroy lung and brain cells after long-term exposure.
Down to the particle
On Earth, fine particles tend to smoothen over years of erosion by wind and water, lunar dust however, is not round, but sharp and spiky.
In addition the Moon has no atmosphere and is constantly bombarded by radiation from the Sun that causes the soil to become electrostatically charged.
This charge can be so strong that the dust levitates above the lunar surface, making it even more likely to get inside equipment and people’s lungs.
Working with the simulant is no easy feat. “The rarity of the lunar glass-like material makes it a special kind of dust. We need to grind the source material but that means removing the sharp edges,” says Erin Tranfield, biologist and expert in dust toxicity.
Silicon Valley billionaires like Elon Musk say they’ll save the world with AI, Mars colonies and eternal life. PhD Astrophysicist Adam Becker says they’re dead wrong.
Who is right — the billionaire or the scientist?
In this interview on The Nerd Reich podcast Adam Becker—author of More Everything Forever—calls out Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and the tech overlord cult pushing fantasies of immortality, godlike AGI, and space empires. From the myth of the singularity to the hellish reality of Mars, Becker brings the receipts and destroys the pseudo-science behind billionaire techno-utopianism.
🌍 Why Mars is NOT humanity’s backup plan
🧠 Why AGI is more religion than science
💀 Why tech bros fear death—and want to make us all pay for it
📉 The terrifying ideology behind AI hype, space colonization & trans humanism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NrDCvKp5-k
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