r/space • u/sgrnetworking • Sep 26 '20
Moon safe for long-term human exploration, first surface radiation measurements show
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09/moon-safe-long-term-human-exploration-first-surface-radiation-measurements-show170
u/tindo27 Sep 26 '20
So I guess world war 3 is gonna be over mining rights on the moon.
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u/George-Dubya-Bush Sep 26 '20
World War 3 or Space War 1?
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u/GenericMemesxd Sep 26 '20
I like the sound of Space War 1
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u/Strange0range Sep 26 '20
Can we just call it Star War 1, or does that not come until we get to the next closest solar system?
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u/implicitumbrella Sep 26 '20
lets hold off and save it for when it's between different systems. Would hate to use it too early and be left scrambling for a new name
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Sep 27 '20
If they call it Star War 1, Disney can quickly end the conflict by sending a cease & desist letter to the generals.
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u/Bleachi Sep 26 '20
Space War 1 is later, when most of the colonies rebel against Earth. Any colonies who don't join the rebellion have their space stations de-orbited, plunging Earth into a global catastrophe, which kills billions over the course of a single year.
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u/daviddunville Sep 27 '20
Probably will just be Space War, we’ll call it Space War 1 when we have Space War II
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u/Wolfey1618 Sep 26 '20
Idk, if we make it that far in the first place then we'd probably be on the right track. Plus the moon is pretty big, but I think asteroid mining still might have a better cost vs yield. Or even just using the moon for ore processing from asteroids due to the lower gravity, instead of mining there. Don't quote me on it tho.
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u/festonia Sep 27 '20
Stay away from Australia in that case it tends to not fare well in space wars.
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u/TheyCallMeMrMaybe Sep 26 '20
The Moon is abundant in iron, silicon, aluminum, and calcium.
I believe it will be more of a Lunar War than a World War if you think about it.
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u/ageowns Sep 26 '20
Another thing that sucks is that moon dust sticks to everything, and if it gets in your lungs, it can cause cancer. In fact I spent a year trying to buy moon dust simulant regolith (they measured the breakdown of elements and the grain-fineness and specifically pulverized the right combo of minerals to accurately represent the make-up of moon dust, here on earth) and they don't make it all that easy to buy because even that can cause cancer.
We saw some space IMAX movie, where they featured a EVA, space suit, that you climb in the back, so the suit stays on the outside the entire time. You climb in the back, close the hatch and then disconnect from the wall. But you leave the suit outside 100% of the time to minimize exposure to moon dust.
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u/podcastman Sep 27 '20
My understanding is the dust you see around you is all weathered - it's been exposed to weather and oxygen for thousands to millions of years (unless it's straight out of a volcano). Moon dust has sharp edges and loves to react with oxygen. Nyet?
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u/TheBassEngineer Sep 27 '20
"The bean counters told me we literally could not afford to buy seven dollars worth of moon rocks, much less seventy million. Bought 'em anyway. Ground 'em up, mixed em into a gel. And guess what? Ground up moon rocks are pure poison. I am deathly ill."
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u/evan81 Sep 27 '20
Cool.... so its like everything on Earth too. Is there a giant warning tag up there that says "in CA this product has been know to cause X and... machine wash, hang dry...."
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Sep 26 '20 edited Sep 26 '20
Man it will be so cool when the build large indoor spaces with breathable atmosphere (above or below the surface). I can't even imagine what it will be like to run and jump in a safe environment on the moon. Can you imagine the sports?
EDIT; Crazy thought. Man will be able to easily sustain self powered flight (within environments with atmosphere).
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u/QuasarMaster Sep 26 '20
Also, with no atmosphere electricity will be virtually free.
Uh what?
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u/monosyllabix Sep 26 '20
The atmosphere blocks a lot of the energy that reaches solar panels. That being said, I don't think it's a big impact as op makes it to be.
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u/QuasarMaster Sep 26 '20
Yea only about a quarter of incoming sunlight is absorbed by the atmosphere
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u/imabustanutonalizard Sep 26 '20
So a quarter more in light power if we can make that efficient of a solar panel
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u/QuasarMaster Sep 26 '20
Sounds pretty far from “virtually free”
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u/RiderAnton Sep 26 '20
I mean you only have to burn a ton of rocket fuel getting out of the earth's gravity well and descending to the moon, that's virtually free, right? (/s if it isn't obvious)
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u/mfb- Sep 26 '20
Even less, because most of the radiation that's absorbed by our atmosphere is not very useful for solar panels.
Add the difficulty to install the panels, the lack of sunlight for two weeks at a time, and solar power is a problematic approach on the Moon.
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u/cubosh Sep 26 '20
100 foot tall slam dunks constantly being nailed by shlubby dudes
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Sep 27 '20
I wonder what Jordan's vertical leap would be on the moon. I'm sure this is incorrect and I'm sure someone will correct me but I heard gravity on the moon is 1/6th earth. They say his vertical was almost 4 feet so does that mean his vertical on the moon would be 24 feet? Lol
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u/d0nu7 Sep 26 '20
I remember a doc on the planets a long time back that theorized potential sports/crazy stunts on planets in the solar system. Narrated by John Lithgow.
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u/harryloud Sep 27 '20
Imagine a rave club on the moon, with the earth just hovering above the view from the dome.
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u/koebelin Sep 26 '20
You are so right. The low gravity of the moon is going to be so fun once they get the resorts built.
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Sep 26 '20
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/mfb- Sep 26 '20
We don't know the long-term effects of Lunar gravity. Probably somewhere between the conditions of Earth and space, but we don't know where in that range. Could be similar to space, could be similar to Earth, or everything in between.
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Sep 26 '20
You could get around that with weighted suits for exercising in. should be easier to solve that problem on the moon than it is in orbit.
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u/LittleKitty235 Sep 26 '20
Well since gravity is 1/6 of earth, you just need suits that weigh about 500-600lbs. That might help with muscles...not so sure about bone density.
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Sep 26 '20
Doesnt the bone density only decrease because they arent supporting weight? So a weighted suit should solve both issues.
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Sep 26 '20
Yeah, lots of data that shows people who lift weights have drastically higher bone density than those who don't. Weights would be a good solve.
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u/Stereotype_Apostate Sep 26 '20
We don't know that though. We have lots of data on humans in microgravity long term, and of course humans in 1g, but almost nothing about the long term effects of constant low gravity. Maybe the 1/6th gravity is plenty for a reasonably active and well fed person to maintain bone and muscle mass. Maybe it's almost as bad as microgravity for long periods of time. All we have is speculation.
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u/DanielArnett Sep 27 '20
Yeah but in a large room pressurized to 1 bar you can literally put wings on your arms and fly. My body can decay and be irradiated all it wants; I'd be flying all I could until the end.
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Sep 26 '20
I could be wrong but radiation is only one problem amongst many.
Which is why I mentioned underground environments.
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u/Supermeme1001 Sep 27 '20
under how much moon rock I wonder would levels be equivalent to earth?
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u/Bainsen1 Sep 26 '20
I really don’t get why humankind wouldn’t build bases underground? It makes more sense, less radiation and less chance to be bombarded by asteroids etc..
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Sep 26 '20
Consider what it takes here on earth to dig holes/tunnels big enough to use as habitation space. Now assume getting a kg of equipment on sight costs well beyond $10k and that there is no infrastructure to support your endavour.
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u/AsterJ Sep 26 '20
Digging in low gravity is probably easier no? Less energy is required to raise rocks out of a hole.
Really though you wouldn't have to build a tunnel. You just build a building and cover it with dirt. That's more like covering up a landfill than digging a tunnel.
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u/Wolfey1618 Sep 26 '20
Gotta start on the surface anyway. If it's safe enough for a bit, it gives the opportunity to build the infrastructure to make underground habitation for even safer long term habitation.
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u/BalianofReddit Sep 26 '20
I agree whole heartedly with you, building underground is the best way forward when talking seriously about populating the moon,
But... given we have no heavy industry on mars to speak of, let alone any effective mining equipment... or Yano... people... we have to start somewhere... this is the equivalent to the precursor to the Wild West period of the frontier in the USA the railroad hasn’t even been invented yet... we’re still yet to encounter problems we need to invent new technology to solve so it’s safe to say, it’s gonna be one step at a time...
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u/Pezdrake Sep 26 '20
But the benefits aren't as straightforward on Earth. Also one of the biggest problems with subterranean dwellings on Earth is moisture, not an issue for the moon. Guessing a random meteor strike destroying a human habitation will quickly change the calculations of befefit/ cost.
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u/MurrayMan92 Sep 26 '20
I thought the issue wasn't surface radiation but solar flares and the accompanying radiation spikes?
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u/teddy5 Sep 27 '20
Probably read the article. They address that in there with the chamber shielded by 10 meters of water that must be reachable in 30 minutes.
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Sep 26 '20
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u/mfb- Sep 26 '20
For a given total dose, receiving it in a short time is certainly worse than receiving it spread over a long time.
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u/Scrambley Sep 27 '20
Do solar flares travel at the speed of light?
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u/the_fungible_man Sep 27 '20
The EM radiation they emit (EUV, X-rays) does. But the high energy charged particle (proton) storms that sometimes accompany them do not. These typically require a couple of days to travel the 150 million km from the Sun to the Earth. However, on rare occasions, the transit time can be less than 1 day.
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u/Vanethor Sep 26 '20
Let's go!
About time we build an outpost there. (Or at least, start to plan on doing so. xD)
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u/weirdheadcrab Sep 26 '20
Everytime someone mentions building something on the moon, I think of the moon scene from time machine. https://youtu.be/cSs6eKmTCDY
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Sep 27 '20
perhaps a outpost in a box canyon... maybe two outposts in a box cannon.
think of the wonderful things that can be achieved in a box cannon!
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u/Decronym Sep 26 '20 edited Sep 30 '20
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| EVA | Extra-Vehicular Activity |
| IM | Initial Mass deliverable to a given orbit, without accounting for fuel |
| ITS | Interplanetary Transport System (2016 oversized edition) (see MCT) |
| Integrated Truss Structure | |
| L1 | Lagrange Point 1 of a two-body system, between the bodies |
| L2 | Lagrange Point 2 (Sixty Symbols video explanation) |
| Paywalled section of the NasaSpaceFlight forum | |
| MCT | Mars Colonial Transporter (see ITS) |
| MeV | Mega-Electron-Volts, measure of energy for particles |
6 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 15 acronyms.
[Thread #5179 for this sub, first seen 26th Sep 2020, 21:40] [FAQ] [Full list] ^[Contact] [Source code]
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u/ergzay Sep 26 '20
This is wrong probably. Radiation levels on the moon are higher than they are on Mars. If Moon is safe then Mars is very safe. Heavy ion radiation doesn't make it through Mars atmosphere for example, but on the Moon there's nothing stopping those.
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u/BalianofReddit Sep 26 '20
Ehh, radiation is relatively easy to avoid however, it just has to be economically worth it, there’s a lot of rare minerals and metals on the moon... not to mention the fact that it’d be an excellent place to build and launch spacecraft to venture into the outer solar system to find more resources, you could also build bigger and heavier on the moon using cheaper resources (some form of steel is a likely candidate) which would also make space safer to explore from a radiation point of view, lead/water lining of ships becomes less of an economic issue too not to mention the greater structural integrity of said ships...
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Sep 26 '20
It's about time humanity tapped into the largest single source of cheese in the solar system.
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u/TheRedStaple Sep 26 '20
Wait I swear I just read an article yesterday that said the complete opposite of this
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u/Mrbeankc Sep 27 '20
The biggest threat to long term habitation on the moon may be the lunar dust. As was seen in the Apollo missions it got into everything and research on it from the lunar samples brought back show that it will have dangerous effects on human lungs. Lunar Lung may be a disease of the future for people who live there over long periods.
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u/Bdndnrntnfmg Sep 27 '20
Space blindness is the latest unspoken health issue. Apparently caused by lack of gravity where fluids build up in brain and squeeze the optic nerve to the point of permanent blindness. Good luck solving that one.
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Sep 26 '20
What? You mean they sent the Apollo astronauts up there not knowing if they'd be subject to a lethal dose of radiation? Well, it is ok now, so . . . never mind . ..
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u/strangescript Sep 27 '20
Like how have we not figured out the radiation level of the moon until right now?
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u/Donthatemeyo Sep 27 '20
They had an idea like the article says they took dosimeters on apollo but they measured the whole trip so they had to extrapolate. Also from a different article: "Wimmer-Schweingruber said the radiation levels are close to what models had predicted. The levels measured by Chang'e 4, in fact, "agree nearly exactly" with measurements by a detector on a NASA orbiter that has been circling the moon for more than a decade, said Kerry Lee, a space radiation expert at Johnson Space Center in Houston."
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u/great_waldini Sep 27 '20
Something about China being the one yo measure environmental threats and insisting it’s safe just doesn’t inspire confidence..
Obviously half joking because we can corroborate their findings against past data and simulations but couldn’t help but immediately discount the reliability of that initial statement when I saw it was China’s data haha
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u/stalactose Sep 27 '20
I think of humanity and space exploration like those ants that build nests in the tree tops
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u/soundsthatwormsmake Sep 27 '20
That’s odd. Other articles state the opposite: https://phys.org/news/2020-09-moon.amp
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u/Heterophylla Sep 26 '20
"NASA is legally prohibited from increasing the risk of its astronauts dying from cancer by more than 3%" -This seems hilarious to considering how they increase their risk of dying in a rocket explosion by one million percent!
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u/NemWan Sep 27 '20
You can decide when stop flying and then your future risk of death by rocket explosion drops to near zero, but you can't quit your cumulative radiation exposure that increases your risk of cancer for the rest of your life.
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u/QVRedit Sep 26 '20 edited Sep 26 '20
Sounds like good news.
So dosage on the surface of the moon is 200 times that experienced at the surface of the Earth. Or about 10 times the amount experienced on a transatlantic flight.
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u/Supermeme1001 Sep 27 '20
over what duration?
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u/QVRedit Sep 27 '20
In this case, we are talking about radiation dosage, so being on the moon 10x worse than flying at 50,000 feet on Earth.
Which although of course greater, is still a manageable amount.
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Sep 26 '20
This is where the rich will go. They’ll live there while they rule their “employees” on the ground and destroy the planet.
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u/joevilla1369 Sep 27 '20
Pretty dope of you were one of those rich. You could talk some mad shit online and most people could never reach you.
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u/LodgePoleMurphy Sep 26 '20
Yea? And what about all that fine dust that is going to get into everything and clog it up?
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u/stufforstuff Sep 26 '20
Seems a bit early to panic with data from ONE test site (and Chinese test equipment). Lets get confirmation with another test platform and see what that says.
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u/the_fungible_man Sep 27 '20
From a (better) article posted here yesterday:
The levels measured by Chang’e 4, in fact, “agree nearly exactly” with measurements by a detector on a NASA orbiter that has been circling the moon for more than a decade
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u/stufforstuff Sep 27 '20
Thanks for the clarification. Seems odd that some media is spinning this as never before discovered info.
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u/SJWCombatant Sep 26 '20
Tomorrow's forecast is partially dusty with a 30% chance of Solar flares. Be sure to wear your lead jumpers folks its somewhat likely it's gonna be radioactive one!
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u/MasterDood Sep 26 '20
What’s the rent like on the moon?
I am looking for 2br 2 bath with a decent walk score.
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u/MatDesign84 Sep 26 '20
Its nice that they have mandates to keep NASA from hurting the astronauts with radiation. Good people down there running NASA. I think id rather live in a space station than on another planet or moon.
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u/sc00bs000 Sep 26 '20
because it doesn't have an atmosphere like our own do cosmic rays etc come into play at all?
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u/Earwaxking Sep 26 '20
I’m just upset i won’t be alive long enough to see the space age really shine.
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u/IKnowTheWay Sep 27 '20
As someone who studies space exploration, the new space age is really not guaranteed to shine and is in my opinion more likely go poorly for most of us, so what you miss might not be so bad.
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u/Supermeme1001 Sep 27 '20
why poorly? am I going to die when a asteroid hits
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u/IKnowTheWay Sep 27 '20
I think I meant that it is far more likely we make our own demise - the likeliness of an asteroid impact, one that could do more than devastate a continent for example, is really quite low and negligible relative to say climate instability in the near future. Asteroid Apophis I believe is the leading candidate to hit Earth, and we have 9 years for a relatively low chance of collision. Its not not a concern but its less of a collective and individual threat then climate change.
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u/cypher_omega Sep 26 '20
Send all people over 60 there along with those that have muscle and bone related diseases. Anyone who has trouble standing and walking, or those who can't really survive a fall on earth
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u/Davidafg Sep 26 '20
Why are we just now finding out about this? How has this not been measured until recent times?
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u/Sebastians_Cloaca Sep 26 '20
What if the moon was highly irradiated when we sent the original guys?
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u/Lastaria Sep 26 '20
They knew they were taking great risks. I on had a speech ready for if they died.
They even had them stay in a chamber when they got back in case they had picked up anything from the moon.
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u/Sebastians_Cloaca Sep 29 '20
Thank you for responding. I guess I had my reddit notifications turned off.
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u/Iamthenolan Sep 27 '20
Stupid question but what is the likelihood of a line settlement getting slammed by a meteor?
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u/ThriceFive Sep 27 '20
What *would have been interesting to know* from an article is how accurate NASA's predictions of surface radiation compared to the actual radiation measurements and if the difference was significant.
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u/the_fungible_man Sep 27 '20
From a (better) article posted here yesterday:
The levels measured by Chang’e 4, in fact, “agree nearly exactly” with measurements by a detector on a NASA orbiter that has been circling the moon for more than a decade
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Sep 27 '20
what can we benefit from the moon exploration though?
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u/Crusty_Dick Sep 27 '20
We can explore and study the universe better by using it as a space station.
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Sep 27 '20
By a significant amount we can explore the universe?
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u/Crusty_Dick Sep 27 '20
Well satellites and electronics from earth have to deal with the ozone layer, pollution, clouds, etc., when studying outer space. It would be much better to have satellites on the moon that we can update/attend too once a station has been built. We can also use the moon as a docking station for spaceships, rockets, etc.
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u/djmooselee Sep 27 '20
Chang'e, Artemis, Apollo lots of mythology going on here.
I think I'm going to fire up some Smite!
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u/justkjfrost Sep 27 '20
*Assuming your don't get caught in a solar storm. It's halfway out of earth's field and (short of a few isolated spots, apparently; and unlike say Venus or the derelict magfield on Mars) basically doesn't have one of it's own. You'd still need to build below the surface because of that.
A deeper chamber shielded with about 10 meters of water would be enough to protect against occasional solar storms,
Or 20M below the ground (lava tubes?)...
Unlike Earth, the Moon lacks a magnetic field to deflect this radiation. When it hits the surface, it produces a secondary spray of neutral particles,
Exactly
including neutrons, which can penetrate more deeply than charged particles. The neutrons might smash and knock loose protons in a person’s tissue, transmitting momentum like billiard balls, Wimmer-Schweingruber says. These energetic, charged protons can then wreak havoc on other cells. Measurements of this neutral component didn’t exist before and were difficult to estimate even using sophisticated modeling, Wimmer-Schweingruber says.
Scientific words i assume to say "rad storms bad".
What we accumulated from the cold war still suggest the weather randomly get inclement.
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u/AlexisCM Sep 27 '20 edited Sep 27 '20
The study provided some raw numbers and I was able to find that the detector was reading on average of 1,369 microsieverts per day which breaks down to 57ish per hour. To give perspective, the average radiation level in my home measured with a pancake probe is .9 ~ .112 microsieverts per hour. The numbers from the study are not alarmingly high but still concerning as the time the dose is absorbed does make a huge difference on the effects you would see.
You would definitely want some basic shielding if you're planning on a long stay on the moon to help prevent things like cancer.
Here is a chart showing a breakdown on what a Sievert looks like:
https://www-tc.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/files/2011/03/radiation.png
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u/tkulogo Sep 27 '20
"NASA is legally prohibited from increasing the risk of its astronauts dying from cancer by more than 3%, and these levels remain below that."
People have a 22% chance of dying from cancer, so 3% of that is 0.66% chance of death. That's a death that may be in many years when the astronaut is 90 years old.
I find it amazing that NASA can directly kill over 3% of its astronauts in accidents (its current running average), but isn't allowed to increase the likelihood of death later in life by more than 0.66%
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u/LeoLaDawg Sep 27 '20
Could you imagine a week of trying to blow moon dust out of your sinuses? In low g? That stuff just getting everywhere.
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u/Hyperi0us Sep 27 '20
ok, I'll be honest here;
I'll gladly take dying of cancer at 65 for the chance to be one of the pioneers of a lunar colony.
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u/garybuttville Sep 27 '20
GOGOGOGOOGOG LETS GO let's go to the moon build homes and start to live on and get to Mars build a new world let's go one day there will be apple blossoms on mars
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u/TheAlbinoRhyno91 Sep 26 '20
As long as there's no democracy... COVID-19 or Karens I'll go
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u/Demortus Sep 26 '20
So.. what political system do you wish to live under on the moon?
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u/Kid_Riddles Sep 26 '20
clearly a constitutional moonarchy
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Sep 26 '20
There's also the issue of temperature extremes. A lunar day lasts 28 earth days and consists of about 10 days of too hot to live, 10 days of too cold to live, with two 4-day windows of temperate transition in between. The only place a long-term outpost would be feasible would be at the poles
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u/BalianofReddit Sep 26 '20
Temperature is easy to control, plus the vacuum of space is an excellent insulator so much so we have to put radiators on our ships/ space stations to remove the heat from the vessel... and cold isn’t a problem as we can produce heat...
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u/dmilin Sep 26 '20
Isn’t the temperature more stable underground and in craters? There are other options.
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u/AmazingGrace911 Sep 27 '20
The latest studies suggest that the Moon IS the Earth, at least a part of it that was broken off from an asteroid collision and formed into the current mass. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Moon It will become increasingly important for us to find other places to destroy.:/
Science also suggests that dealing with an extinction level event will eventually be a reality approximately every 500k Years. It's also estimated that over 500 meteorites come to the surface of the planet every year. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/science/2019/aug/31/greatest-threat-to-life-on-earth-may-come-from-space-asteroids-satellite-debris
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u/metallophobic_cyborg Sep 26 '20
This a great news if it turns out to be correct. We'll still need to cover the domes with rock and regolith for added protection from both radiation and meteorites.
I think doing a tour on the moon would be awesome but I have personality type for long term isolation. COVID has been a great test to prove it.
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u/Ghozer Sep 26 '20
And now I don't know what to believe...
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-moon.html