Lunar Dust & Mt. Redoubt

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http://spaceweather.com/
April 1, 2009
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*NEW VERB: *There's a new verb in Alaska: "to ash." It's like "to snow," only grayer and more sulfurous. Residents downwind of Mt. Redoubt are using it like this: "We don't run our ski lifts when *it ashes* because it damages the electric motors," says Michelle Cosper of the Alyeska Resort near Girdwood. It's been ashing a lot lately as Mt. Redoubt has erupted more than 19 times since March 22nd. "The ash has created a moonscape with all the highlights of gray," she says.

The resemblance to moondust is more than superficial. Consider the following: Volcanic ash is gray, abrasive, can be dangerous to breathe and easily electrified. Moondust is gray, abrasive, can be dangerous to breathe and easily electrified . Indeed, Alaskans are getting a taste of life on the Moon.
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Michael Murphy sent me the link to the above SpaceWeather article on the problems with volcanic ash from the latest eruption of Mt. Redoubt in Alaska.
His comment on the article.
- LRK -
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I find the comparison to the composition of moondust to be quite interesting. Maybe this (and other similar situations) would be an opportunity to test hardware and try out possible decontamination (dust removal) processes that would be essential in a Lunar Habitat.
Michael W. Murphy
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Would be nice to take advantage of these natural happenings as we consider how to live on the Moon.
At present NASA needs Fake Moondust.
- LRK -

http://www.space.com/news/0701032_technovelgy_moondust.html
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/28dec_truefake.htm?list955127

The folks at the airport are trying to be creative.
- LRK -

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http://www.adn.com/volcano/story/740777.html
Airport opens, residents clean up ash
By LISA DEMER
ldemer@adn.com
Published: March 29th, 2009 03:17 PM
Last Modified: March 30th, 2009 12:30 PM

The day after Redoubt volcano spewed ash across Anchorage and much of Southcentral Alaska, the city began to clean up the soggy gray mess. Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport reopened Sunday afternoon, though many flights were still canceled or delayed. Hundreds of passengers anticipate being stranded for days in hubs like Seattle and Minneapolis.

Drivers lined up at car washes to blast off the scratchy gunk. Worried pet owners flooded the phones at an emergency vet clinic. And everyone watched for any signs of another explosion from Redoubt.

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The ash is mainly fine bits of abrasive volcanic glass that can damage lungs, vehicles or electronics equipment. But the ash fall on Anchorage, Nikiski and elsewhere in Southcentral Alaska on Saturday was considered minor.

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*Slide show:* Airport crew uses new technique to get ash off runways

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Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
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Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
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http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/newsreader/story/741454.html
March 30: Time-lapse volcano video; fur trapper reflects; sheefish season; lawmakers, aides shoot guns; Alaskan Brewing's green dreams; polluting wood boilers
Today's News for the Last Frontier
Compiled by Mark Dent
mdent@adn.com
Published: March 30th, 2009 08:58 AM
Last Modified: March 31st, 2009 09:41 AM

TIME-LAPSE PHOTOS CAPTURE REDOUBT ERUPTION (Bretwood Higman, Ground Truth Trekking / Vimeo.com): Seldovia photographer Higman on Friday set up a camera to shoot Redoubt Volcano at 15-second intervals. He got lucky with a dramatic series of photos showing a sunset eruption.
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http://vimeo.com/3892358
Redoubt Eruption March 27 2009
by Bretwood Higman
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dangerous to breathe
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/22apr_dontinhale.htm

*April 22, 2005: *This is a true story.

In 1972, Apollo astronaut Harrison Schmitt sniffed the air in his Lunar Module, the /Challenger/. "[It] smells like gunpowder in here," he said. His commander Gene Cernan agreed. "Oh, it does, doesn't it?"

**The two astronauts had just returned from a long moonwalk around the Taurus-Littrow valley, near the Sea of Serenity. Dusty footprints marked their entry into the spaceship. That dust became airborne--and smelly.

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easily electrified
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/30mar_moonfountains.htm

*March 30, 2005: * It's astounding how prophetic some science fiction has been.

**Back in 1956, two years before NASA was even created, Hal Clement wrote a short story called "Dust Rag" published in /Astounding Science Fiction/, about two astronauts descending into a crater on the Moon to investigate a mysterious haze dimming stars near the lunar horizon. After discarding a wild guess that they were seeing traces of a lunar atmosphere--"gases don't behave that way"--they figured it had to be dust somehow suspended above the ground. In a conversation remarkable for its scientific prescience, one of the astronauts explains:

"…The [Moon's] surface material is one of the lousiest imaginable electrical conductors, so the dust normally on the surface picks up and keeps a charge. And what, dear student, happens to particles carrying like electrical charges?"

"They are repelled from each other."

"Head of the class. And if a hundred-kilometer circle with a rim a couple of [kilometers] high is charged all over, what happens to the dust lying on it?

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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080924191552.htm
NASA’s Dirty Secret: Moon Dust

ScienceDaily (Sep. 29, 2008) — The Apollo Moon missions of 1969-1972 all share a dirty secret. “The major issue the Apollo astronauts pointed out was dust, dust, dust,” says Professor Larry Taylor, Director of the Planetary Geosciences Institute at the University of Tennessee. Fine as flour and rough as sandpaper, Moon dust caused ‘lunar hay fever,’ problems with space suits, and dust storms in the crew cabin upon returning to space.

Taylor and other scientists will present their research on lunar dust at the “Living on a Dusty Moon” session on Thursday, 9 October 2008, at the Joint Meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA), Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), and Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies (GCAGS) in Houston, Texas, USA.* NASA will use these findings to plan a safer manned mission to the Moon in 2018. Taylor will also deliver a Pardee Keynote Session talk on Sunday, 5 October 2008 entitled “Formation and Evolution of Lunar Soil from An Apollo Perspective.”

The trouble with moon dust stems from the strange properties of lunar soil. The powdery grey dirt is formed by micrometeorite impacts which pulverize local rocks into fine particles. The energy from these collisions melts the dirt into vapor that cools and condenses on soil particles, coating them in a glassy shell.

These particles can wreak havoc on space suits and other equipment. During the Apollo 17 mission, for example, crewmembers Harrison “Jack” Schmitt and Gene Cernan had trouble moving their arms during moonwalks because dust had gummed up the joints. “The dust was so abrasive that it actually wore through three layers of Kevlar-like material on Jack’s boot,” Taylor says.

To make matters worse, lunar dust suffers from a terrible case of static cling. UV rays drive electrons out of lunar dust by day, while the solar wind bombards it with electrons by night. Cleaning the resulting charged particles with wet-wipes only makes them cling harder to camera lenses and helmet visors. Mian Abbas of the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will discuss electrostatic charging on the moon and how dust circulates in lunar skies.

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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