NASA Engineers Battle Magnetic Moon Dust

Unfiltered solar radiation, temperatures that make the Antarctic seem balmy, a 200,000 mile trip to the nearest hardware store -- all pose serious challenges for lunar explorers, but the biggest problem may be ... moon dust.

Terrestrial dust, formed by eons of tumbling through wind and water, is comfortably round. Its lunar counterpart comes from the crashing of meteors into rocks turned to glass by earlier meteoric impacts. The dust is sharp and jagged, perfect for ruining spacesuits. Even worse, ultraviolet radiation from an unshaded sun is powerful enough to pull electrons from the top layers of lunar dirt, giving each particle a positive charge. A similar property is possessed by grains of styrofoam packing kernels -- which, as we've all discovered with frustration, have diabolical powers of adhesion.

NASA recently convened a workshop, chaired by NASA Engineering Safety
Center chief scientist Daniel Winterhaler, to discuss the moon dust problem. He discussed the dust with Astrobiology Magazine:

On Earth some contaminants of similar size and characteristics to lunar dust are considered serious hazards to human health, for example in some coal mines.

Crews had problems with coughing and with skin and eye irritation from dust in the landers and return vehicles. Some astronauts reported smells of caldron, a gunpowder sort of smell, as soon as they went back into their lunar modules. They unintentionally brought back vast quantities of dust, attached to their suits, stuck in their gloves, in equipment, and so on. Just physically or electrostatically attached to the suit. When it got back into the pressurized module, they started smelling these oxidation type smells.

Some Apollo suits began to show indications of difficulty due to dust contaminants in the joints. The stuff was very difficult to remove from suit fabrics and other materials. There were also difficulties in the seals intended to preserve lunar samples from atmospheric contamination. Dust was such a nuisance that Gene Cernan, the Apollo 17
commander, said, “I think dust is probably one of our greatest inhibitors to a nominal operation on the moon.”

Dust-busting, Lunar Style: Interview with Daniel Winterhalter [Astrobiology Magazine]

Image: NASA