why moon dust is such a problem for NASA

- Just like a automobile battery.

- [Matt] This is our simulation

of a Lunar Lander arriving at the moon.

(upbeat song)

- I experience I kinda like that.

- Ready?

- Yep. And three, 2, 1.

(dashing air)

- Okay.

- Look, as you may tell, it's very, very crude

but there's one extraordinarily accurate element, the dust.

This is lunar regolith simulant or faux moon soil.

It changed into made through a lab it truly is element

of a small however developing cottage industry.

It turns out that soil

at the Moon is nothing like its cousin right here on Earth.

It's bizarre, unpredictable, or even risky.

And as extra missions purpose for the moon

- [Voiceover] Back to the moon and past

- Simulant is supporting avoid a few doubtlessly

catastrophic run-ins with the actual stuff.

- [Voiceover] That a touch bit fly.

- So these are samples of simulated lunar regolith

which specialists will name lunar soil or dirt or dirt.

We got those samples with the aid of ordering them

on the net, and the story of why it's so

with no trouble to be had is definitely form of captivating.

And it starts with this:

- [Matt] The first samples taken of the Moon

at some stage in the Apollo application showed

that lunar regolith is peculiar and nasty stuff.

See, there's no actual environment on the moon.

So meteorites have pounded its bedrock into

a mix of sharp jagged debris and masses of dirt.

And without wind or rain to climate that down,

the surface stays jagged and dusty for all time.

Meteorites also melt the soil on effect

and create little shards of glassy material

referred to as Agglutinate.

And that soil is constantly being baked

by using solar wind causing chemical changes

in the minerals themselves.

It's an entirely alien fabric.

And at some point of the Apollo missions, it got anywhere.

It messed with device readings, tore up spacesuits,

clogged system, angry astronauts eyes

and the lungs.

Real bad news.

NASA's solution turned into to make fake lunar soil right here

on Earth to higher prep their hardware

before putting it to work at the moon.

Now they've made and examined plenty

of simulants over time, and greater currently

have pulled in non-public companies to assist

with large scale manufacturing.

That become a clever circulate

due to the fact in recent times we're in a chunk of a Moon boom.

- [Voiceover] NASA says it's starting a modern chapter

in lunar exploration

- [Voiceover 2] Beijing's goal to put its personal

astronauts at the moon with the aid of 2030.

- Four level engine begin.

- [Matt] With Artemis and lots of other missions

at the horizon. The simulant business is brisk.

- [Anna] Our network does project us

and they push us very difficult

purpose they are like, k, ,

I want three kilograms. And we are like, here you go.

And they may be like, okay, are you able to supply us like 50?

And we are like, very well, gimme a little little bit of time.

We got this.

And then they're like, alright,

so now gimme 50 tons.

- [Matt] Exolith Lab is one among NASA's number one providers

of lunar simulants, and that they walked us

via their technique for making these items from scratch.

It starts with a question.

"Where at the moon do you wanna simulate?"

- [Anna] So whilst you take a look at the Moon

the lighter areas is what we call the Highlands

after which the Mare regions are the darker spots.

So the mineralology there's pretty special.

- So allow's don't forget this Highland pattern,

based on research of actual lunar samples,

the recipe from Exolith is a gaggle of anorthosite

a little basalt, and a smidge of ilminite,

pyroxene and olivine.

First, the team resources the raw materials

from mines and other suppliers.

Some of it arrives pre-crushed, other samples no longer a lot.

- [Anna] It's very just like a mining operation.

Some of our substances come in large boulders.

So what we do is we throw them in one crusher

then we throw them in some other massive crusher.

We also ought to sieve it out.

A lot of the processing that we do

on our materials thru the crushing

also enables 'em achieve that favored shape,

that preferred jaggedness that we are seeking out.

- [Matt] Now, for more of bespoke orders

they could even blend in a few simulated aggultinate.

That's the odd glassy fabric.

Finally, all of the substances get combined collectively

within the proper ratio.

- It's sort of like baking.

What you do is you comply with a recipe, you weigh

out the one of a kind materials, after which we permit it blend

for a while till it's pleasant and homogeneous.

- Just like that.

You've got moon dirt.

So what are folks truly doing with the simulants?

Well, all sorts of things.

They're figuring out a way to dig into it, navigate rovers

thru it, develop flowers in it, extract oxygen from it.

All the things we need to do to spend extra time at the Moon.

Now, no one stimulant is an excellent stand-in for

all of these experiments.

It's simply too difficult to make a reproduction it truly is perfect

in each manner.

But distinct stimulants can get quite near

on person functions like the size

and shape of particles or of the chemical composition.

So researchers can order the right stimulants

for the right take a look at.

- Rolling.

- This is gonna shake lots.

- [Matt] Learning approximately all that paintings inspired us to

do something with our samples.

So we idea we would take a look at a problem that could simply

jeopardize our long-term plans at the moon.

It starts offevolved whilst you factor a rocket engine

and all that dusty, jagged regolith.

- That became insane.

- Nice.

(laughing)

- When you try to land a rocket at the moon

the rocket exhaust is coming

out at lots of meters according to second.

- [Matt] Phil Medsker and his colleagues have spent

20 strange years studying what takes place subsequent

which seems kind of like this.

When rocket exhaust hits the moon, it sends

up a large plume of high speed regolith

like it'd on Earth in case you had been to

land a rocket someplace without a launchpad.

But with low gravity

and no real environment, that soil travels.

- [Phillip] There is not any distance

at the Moon that is a ways enough away to be safe

from some debris hitting at that distance.

- [Matt] Meaning smaller debris

from a unmarried touchdown can shoot throughout the whole moon

- And therefore anything it truly is uncovered

to that spray is gonna be hit

through particles going heaps of meters in line with second.

- [Matt] We surely actually have an example of

this in November of 1969, Apollo 12 touched down near

Surveyor 3, that's an uncrewed NASA craft that

landed a couple years earlier than.

- They landed one hundred sixty meters away, because

at the time they concept that changed into some distance sufficient away

in order that the rocket exhaust wouldn't damage the Surveyor.

Turns out that changed into, you already know, a extensive

great underneath prediction of ways some distance the ejector goes.

So after they were given the portions lower back from Surveyor three again

to Earth, they observed out they have been absolutely sandblasted.

The coatings have been worn off.

The paint was absolutely penetrated

and filled with lunar dirt debris.

It completely eroded the complete floor of the Surveyor.

- [Matt] As the lunar economy heats up

and the moon receives extra crowded,

those tiny little particles ought to purpose bigger

and bigger problems.

Damage from regolith plumes may want to cost a number of cash,

positioned destiny missions at threat,

even reason geopolitical problem.

- Because if one united states of america lands on the moon

and then sandblasts and damages the

hardware of another us of a

then technically you are violating the Outer Space Treaty

because you're now not allowed to do any harm

to different nations property in space.

There's additionally a challenge

approximately nations claiming a very large blast area

which might be a manner to get around the Outer Space Treaty

and declare defacto territory at the Moon.

- [Matt] Fortunately, there are lots of answers

on the table.

You may want to standardize touchdown zones

for everyone, using the Moon's

hills and valleys as shields.

Even building launch pads out of regolith.

And simulant is powering quite a few that R and D.

NASA's busy trying out regolith based creation materials

and doing a good deal extra considerate versions

of our little test.

There's nevertheless lots extra work to be finished

but Phil says there may be also been loads greater popularity

of the problem than there used to be, which seems like a win.

- If there has been something that I could recall to

be my lifestyles's paintings, I suppose that could be it.

But yeah, I feel truly good

approximately in which we're and in which it is been to date.

- Of course, humanity has its sight set

farther than the Moon and we have regolith for that too.

I suggest, here's a few Mars regolith complete

of various minerals and homes.

The point is, the want for these things isn't always going everywhere

and there's a virtuous cycle to it too.

I mean, the more stimulant it really is available

the greater gets used right here on Earth

and perhaps more missions happen accessible

- [Anna] The extra that humans have get right of entry to to doing things

like this type of research with our stuff, the greater

it's gonna perpetuate that interest.

So I do feel like being a part of it as it's happening

- [Voiceover] And carry off of Artemis 1.

- [Anna] after which also helping it come to be extra to be had

to absolutely everyone is gonna sort of make that manifest even

extra swiftly.

- So believe being

on a planet covered in this stuff.

Sweeping for all time.

- Don't sweep up the Lunar Lander. Lunar Rover. (guffawing