A microscopic photograph of microwave-melted lunar soil. More.
Posted on 11/11/2005 12:45:01 PM PST by tricky_k_1972
Lunar Lawn Mower
A microscopic photograph of microwave-melted lunar soil. More. |
Scientists and engineers figuring out how to return astronauts to the moon, set up habitats, and mine lunar soil to produce anything from building materials to rocket fuels have been scratching their heads over what to do about moondust.
It's everywhere! The powdery grit gets into everything, jamming seals and abrading spacesuit fabric. It also readily picks up electrostatic charge, so it floats or levitates off the lunar surface and sticks to faceplates and camera lenses. It might even be toxic.
So what do you do with all this troublesome dust? Larry Taylor, Distinguished Professor of Planetary Sciences at the University of Tennessee has an idea:
Don't try to get rid of it--melt it into something useful!
"I'm one of those weird people who like to stick things in ordinary kitchen microwave ovens to see what happens," Taylor confessed to several hundred scientists at the Lunar Exploration Advisory Group (LEAG) conference at NASA's Johnson Space Center last month.
At home in Tennessee, his most famous experiment involves a bar of Irish Spring soap, which quickly turns into "an abominable monster" when you hit the microwave's Start button. But that's not the one he told about at LEAG.
Apropos to the moon, he once put a small pile of lunar soil brought back by the Apollo astronauts into a microwave oven. And he found that it melted "lickety-split," he said, within 30 seconds at only 250 watts.
The reason has to do with its composition. The lunar regolith, or soil, is produced when micrometeorites plow into lunar rocks and sand at tens of kilometers per second, melting it into glass. The glass contains nanometer-scale beads of pure iron – so called "nanophase" iron. It is those tiny iron beads that so efficiently concentrate microwave energy that they "sinter" or fuse the loose soils into large clumps.
This observation has inspired Taylor to imagine all kinds of machinery for sending to the moon that could fuse lunar dust into useful solids.
"Picture a buggy pulled behind a rover that is outfitted with a set of magnetrons," that is, the same gizmo at the guts of a microwave oven.
"With the right power and microwave frequency, an astronaut could drive along, sintering the soil as he goes, making continuous brick down half a meter deep--and then change the power settings to melt the top inch or two to make a glass road," he suggested.
"Or say that you want a radio telescope," he continued. "Find a round crater and run a little microwave 'lawnmower' up and down the crater's sides to sinter a smooth surface. Hang an antenna from the middle--voila, instant Arecibo!" he exclaimed, referring to the giant 305-meter-diameter radio telescope in Puerto Rico formed out of a natural circular valley.
Technical challenges remain. Sintering moondust in a microwave oven on Earth isn't the same as doing it on the airless moon. Researchers still need to work out details of a process to produce strong, uniformly sintered material in the harsh lunar environment.
But the idea has promise: Sintered rocket landing pads, roads, bricks for habitats, radiation shielding--useful products and dust abatement, all at once.
"The only limit," says Taylor, "is imagination."
*bambambambambambambambambambambambam*
[ Hits head on Wall ]
&!*@(#!!
The Artemis Society was talking about this sort of thing a decade ago, telling everyone we could! But, of course, this has to be presented by an "esteemed scientist" to get any play... Dangit, Ph.D. is only a set of letters, but it sure opens the ol' doors...
*Ahem*
Now that my little tantrum is over, let me say:
Cooool!
:)
I think its a Tennessee thing - sticking stuff in the microwave. Its just so much cooler than sticking stuff in the VCR.
Some say NASA's new program is not science. Maybe not, but so what? How much science do we need? If they can get some water from or to the moon, there is a lot of real estate going to waste.
bttt
Ok, you want imagination, try this : Titanium and oxygen are quite common on the moon, TiO2 is the bright white pigment in paint. So your "lawnmower" converts abundant solar energy at the lunar surface into making TiO2 "paint" as it rolls across the surface. The lunar albedo changes from dark asphalt to cloud top-bright white. A SECOND SUN appears in our skies as the lunar surface reflects practically all the sunlight falling on it, night comes but once a moonth during new moon. Wanna do an environmental impact statement on that?
Soooo, we're planning to pave the moon, huh? Strip malls here on Earth aren't enough?
Saw a presentation at Los Alamos in the 1980's during Bush I's Exploration Initiative. Certain parts of the Lunar surface are non-conducting soil. You can dope it with the right stuff to turn the surface into gigantic solar cells. The efficiency is low, but the size is unlimited. Connect them to a distributed array of transmitters and you can get a pretty tight microwave beam back to power Earth or a faraway space vessel. Imagine a tractor doping millions of acres with a few tons of chemicals. The power available boggles the mind.
I've "created" some interesting things in my microwave but I didn't think I was "experimenting". Wonder how useful brown/black melted Velveeta is?
Great as a head gasket for a '72 Chevy Vega.
Not only would this void your GM Warranty, but the GM Materials supplier, Cheeses of Nazareth (PA), won't do much for you in your Vega either.
Extension cords may be a problem, tho..
Has anyone tried to replicate the Irish Spring experiment yet?
"Or say that you want a radio telescope," he continued. "Find a round crater and run a little microwave 'lawnmower' up and down the crater's sides to sinter a smooth surface. Hang an antenna from the middle--voila, instant Arecibo!" he exclaimed, referring to the giant 305-meter-diameter radio telescope in Puerto Rico formed out of a natural circular valley.Now that sounds pretty cool.
2045: (overheard at the Robot Oil-Bar) "Whoa! Look at the magnetrons on that babe!!"
No, but it's suddenly near the top of my "List of Things To Do".
SPAM is really cool when you zap it in the microwave. it becomes this leathery stuff that you can either eat or put on the bottom of your shoes...
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