Elephants鈥� trunks are remarkable tools. Boasting more muscles than the human body, the appendages can knock down trees and suck in several gallons of water, spraying it into their owners鈥� mouths or over their vast bodies.
Now, researchers say elephant trunk-like devices may be useful on the Moon, as well. And they have developed a prototype of a magnetic, trunk-like tube that can collect lunar soil without kicking up hazardous dust.
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Future astronauts living on the Moon will need lots of water, oxygen and other resources that can be extracted from the lunar soil, or regolith.
But collecting the large quantities needed with front-end loaders and dump trucks could throw up a lot of dust. That could cause a host of problems, since the tiny, jagged dust particles could clog machinery and even harm astronauts鈥� health if inhaled (see Martian dust may be hazardous to your health).
In a bid to solve the problem, Benjamin Eimer and Lawrence Taylor, both of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, US, are developing a magnetic device designed to collect soil without creating clouds of the powdery dust. 鈥淭his idea is akin to a leaf sucker,鈥� Eimer told 快猫短视频.
Magnetic coils
The idea is to build a flexible tube with magnetic coils spaced at regular intervals along its length. Because lunar soil particles contain a lot of iron, the magnetic field produced by the coils would suck the soil into the tube and whisk it along its length.
A relatively small tube would be used by an astronaut or robot to pick up soil and feed it into a larger magnetic 鈥榩ipeline鈥� leading back to storage facilities or processing plants at the lunar base. Many of these flexible tubes could be attached to the same pipeline 鈥� like veins in a leaf, allowing soil to be collected from a large area.
And because the magnetic field channels the soil into the centre of the tube and keeps it away from the tube鈥檚 walls, it would prevent dust from escaping. 鈥淵ou can move massive amounts of lunar regolith without kicking up all the dust,鈥� Eimer says.
Early tests suggest the plan will work. He and Taylor have built a small prototype a few centimetres long that successfully picks up simulated lunar soil.
Daniel Durda of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, US, says developing ways to keep dust to a minimum is important. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a real concern,鈥� he told 快猫短视频. 鈥淪omething like this is probably better than a bunch of bulldozers picking it up and dumping it.鈥�
Temperature swings
The research was presented on Thursday at the Lunar and Planetary Society Conference in Houston, Texas.
Another study presented on Thursday suggests burying lunar habitats could help regulate their temperature. On the airless Moon, the surface bakes to over 100潞 Celsius during the day and plunges to a frigid -150潞 C at night.
But these wild temperature swings could be eliminated by burying a lunar habitat with bags of lunar soil, according to a study led by Bela Boldoghy of Ferroelektric Engineering Pan Konceptum in Budapest, Hungary.
Under 10 to 15 metres of lunar soil, the temperature would hover without further intervention around -20潞 C. Although that is bitterly cold, the stable temperature would make it much easier to regulate the base鈥檚 thermostat.
Pre-bagged soil
鈥淢inus 20 is not too difficult,鈥� study co-author Tamas Varga of the VTPatent Agency in Budapest told 快猫短视频. 鈥淎 lot of places on Earth are -20 degrees.鈥�
Burying the habitat with pre-bagged soil instead of simply dumping loose soil on top of it would also avoid kicking up dust, the researchers say, adding that the messy job of bagging the soil could be done far away from the base.
Durda says seesawing temperatures would not be a problem if the base was built near the Moon鈥檚 poles, where there are places permanently in shadow. But in other regions it would be an issue, he says, and burying the habitat is one way to deal with the temperature swings.
Regolith can also block hazardous energetic particles from space, he adds, so burying 鈥渨ould have that added benefit of radiation protection鈥�.
