race for the moonSeveral space agencies and private companies have resumed efforts to pursue lunar landing missions. If all goes according to plan, there will be dozens of simultaneous missions on and around the moon over the next few decades. For the first time in history, we may need a way to manage traffic on the moon, and to do that we’ll need roads.
Sure, it might look a little like putting carpet on a hardwood floor, but scientists have completed preliminary experiments on a technique that would melt the moon’s surface to pave roads on the moon.
We need roads everywhere we go
The Apollo program marked the pinnacle of space exploration and taught us a lot about what kind of activities are possible in space. NASA successfully conducted six of his manned landing missions, starting with Apollo 11 in 1969 and ending with Apollo 17 in December 1972. The story of Apollo 17 can be found in the following articles: last man on the moonnow available on Peacock!
Related: India’s Chandrayaan-3 successfully lands on the Moon’s South Pole
Apollo 17 did the usual lunar science, but it also broke several records for long-distance travel on the moon. The Apollo 17 astronauts used the Lunar Reconnaissance Vehicle (LRV), commonly referred to as the Lunar Rover, to travel 7.6 kilometers (4.7 miles) from the Lunar Module (LM). This is the farthest anyone has ever traveled from their home spacecraft via extravehicular activity (EVA). .
But the fun journey on the moon wasn’t without its challenges. During the spacewalk, the spacecraft lost its rear fender, became covered in moon dust, and nearly overheated. Astronauts Gene Cernan and Jack Schmidt had to make replacement fenders from tape, old lunar maps, and clamps to keep the spacecraft working. To make matters worse, the Moon is always all-terrain, so you couldn’t even pull over to the side of the road for maintenance.
Many spacecraft have died at the hands of killer regolith, and managing lunar dust remains a challenge for lunar landing missions. Even as the lander touches down, its thrusters literally push away tons of material, scattering it across the nearby lunar landscape. The next lunar lander, NOVA-C, scheduled to launch this November, has an experimental purpose designed to study the dust generated during landing.
One potential solution to the dust problem, although it may seem emotionally terrible, is to pave parts of the moon so it’s smooth and reliable for astronauts, spacecraft, and rovers. It is to provide a route for movement.
How scientists plan to pave roads on the moon
Sending a cement mixer into orbit or onto the moon’s surface probably isn’t the most efficient solution, so scientists devised something a little more fun. His PAVER project at the European Space Agency (ESA) tested the ability to melt the moon’s regolith and turn it into a solid surface.
The researchers then used 12 kilowatts of carbon dioxide to melt the simulated lunar regolith under various conditions to find the best way to melt the lunar trail. One of the challenges was finding the right beam size to melt the regolith and attach it to larger pieces of material. After much experimentation, we found that a 4.5 centimeter beam produced the desired effect, resulting in a smooth glass-like material.
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When carried out on the lunar surface, the project will not use lasers at all, but will simply replace the heat source in the laboratory. Instead, it uses a large Fresnel lens several meters in diameter to focus sunlight like a child with a magnifying glass.
Rather than create a single large material, the researchers melted down a triangular shape with a relief hole in its center, allowing them to act as individual tiles or bricks that could be combined to create roads or landing pads. Did. Using current methods, researchers estimate that he could build a 100 square meter landing pad on the lunar surface in about 115 days.
When they finally pave a road on the moon, do you want to bet what they’ll call it Armstrong Street?
The next manned lunar mission will take place soon. Now is the perfect time to revisit the last moon mission in The Last Man on the Moon, now streaming on Peacock!
