Thanks to Henson Shaving for
sponsoring today’s video. The Moon has always had a pull for us on
Earth, both metaphorically and quite literally. Night after night, it is the largest object
we see in our sky. It affects our tides, and sometimes even our emotions, giving rise
to both legends of terrifying werewolves, and providing the backdrop for heart-warming
romance. But beyond its literary significance, it is widely recognised by most space agencies that
the Moon is the first stepping stone on humanity’s way to colonising the solar system. By developing
colonies on our closest neighbour, scientists prepare themselves for some of the challenges
that will be faced on further away missions like Mars. However, the last time people have walked
on the surface of the Moon was back in 1972 with the Apollo 17 mission, and while the Moon is rich
with opportunity, there are dangers there that we did not encounter during our first, all too brief
foray. On its silent surface, hidden menaces lurk, imperceptible to the naked eye. I’m Alex
McColgan, and you’re watching Astrum, and in this video, we’ll explore some of the new
dangers astronauts will encounter on the Moon, as well as explore some of the interesting solutions
for how these challenges might be overcome. In the last couple of decades, lunar
programs have recognised the Moon to be full of resources that could be incredibly useful
in building our first extraplanetary colonies. There are Rare Earth Metals (REM), helium-3,
and probably most important of all, water ice. Water ice was first detected in 1998
when NASA’s probe Lunar Prospector was surveying the polar regions, and thought
it spotted ice in some craters there. After this discovery, NASA voluntarily crashed
their Lunar Prospector into one such crater in the hopes of releasing a cloud of water vapour
which could then be detected using our telescopes. Ten years later, India’s Chandrayaan 1
spacecraft, launched in 2008, also managed to detect water ice in the Moon’s north pole, further
confirming the existence of this lunar treasure. Nowadays, a staggering 600 billion kg of
water ice is estimated to be on our Moon, roughly the same weight as 461,538,462 cars.
That’s a lot of water. But how could such water be found on the Moon, particularly as ice? Wouldn’t
it have evaporated out into space, particularly under the hot daytime temperatures? NASA’s
Lunar Reconnaissance mission recorded surface temperatures as high as 127 degrees Celsius on
parts of the Moon in direct sunlight. However, the key is in that phrase – “direct sunlight.” In
the shadowed portion of the Moon, temperatures can go as low as minus 240 degrees Celsius, which
is more than cold enough to keep water frozen. These wildly fluctuating temperatures
might still be a problem for water ice if it wasn’t for an interesting feature of the
Moon’s rotation. The Moon has a low inclination to the plane of the ecliptic of the Earth around the
Sun, with an inclination angle of five degrees. It is believed that billions of years ago many
comets containing water impacted on the Moon’s surface allowing craters and depressions in the
polar regions to aggregate water. Because of the Moon’s low inclination some of these craters
never saw sunlight for millions of years, allowing this aggregated water to freeze and
remain untouched by sunlight. When the Lunar Reconnaissance recorded temperatures in some
of these permanently darkened polar craters, they were as low as minus 238 degrees
Celsius at the Moon’s south pole and a staggering minus 247 degrees Celsius
in one of the northern pole’s craters. If we intend to colonise the Moon, utilising this
water will be incredibly important. If we could collect this water ice, we could use it to produce
oxygen and liquid water, or even make fuel. However, collecting this water ice might
be more challenging than you’d think. And I don’t just mean the cold. There are bigger
problems we’d have to face if we want to collect and use water ice and other resources from
the poles – one of them is electricity. Because of the Moon’s low inclination, solar
winds - mainly made of ions and electrons - pass by the polar regions and the terminator almost
horizontally, hitting the craters’ leeward. Once there, the negatively charged electrons,
which are 1,000 times lighter than the positively charged ions, rush down into the craters’ inside
walls and bottom causing these surfaces to become negatively charged. As the electrons rush down
before the ions, a difference in charge is formed, causing an electric field to form. A negative
charge is created at the bottom and inside walls of the craters, while a positive charge
forms above until the positively charged ions are driven into this electric field by
the electrons. As you can imagine, the most prominent separation between the two occurs at
the craters’ leeward where the solar wind hits. This division between electrons and ions
will eventually reach a critical level. Because of this effect, these areas could be
charged up to hundreds of thousands of volts, which could have deadly consequences for an
unwary explorer. But even if you avoid the poles, that might not be the end of the electrical
problems you could encounter on the Moon. Another occurs when combined with the fine
surface dust of the Moon – regolith. The Moon has no magnetosphere, so any incoming
solar winds directly hits its surface, causing the surface to become negatively charged
and the covering fine dust on the Moon, regolith, becomes electrostatic. Regolith is a fine dust
with sharp edges which can have abrasive effects. In fact, during the Apollo missions, it
was reported that regolith would stick to everything due to its electrostatic charge.
This could potentially damage spacesuits and instruments, which would be a huge problem. On
top of that, regolith also causes some negative effects on health causing eye redness
and cough as it can be highly toxic. Spacesuits in the Apollo missions were
made of a material called woven Teflon which attracted the electrostatic regolith and
trapped it into its material. Woven Teflon can also cause a tribo-electric effect making the
astronauts a medium between the negatively charged ground of the Moon and the positively
charged solar wind flowing above their head. This is similar to what happens when you rub
your feet on a carpet and then touch the metal handle of a door, causing you to get a small
electric shock. A laboratory experiment has even proved that woven Teflon covered in a simulant
regolith was more prone to electric arcing. Lunar exploration would be much less appealing if
you were constantly getting electrically shocked. So, if the dust and the woven Teflon made the
astronauts so susceptible to getting electrocuted, why haven’t we noticed before? Wouldn’t it have
happened during the Apollo missions? Well, this static effect can be offset when photons emitted
from the Sun kick off some of the electrons from the ground in a process known as photoelectric
emission. This causes the ground in direct sunlight to be more positively charged and balance
the negative charges brought by the solar wind. Because landers of the Apollo missions
landed on a part of the Moon which was constantly hit by sunlight, our astronauts
had very low chances of getting electrocuted. But that’s not to say it wouldn’t be an issue
elsewhere. So, how can we keep our astronauts safe from extreme temperatures, toxic dust that could
potentially contaminate moon bases, and the high chances of astronauts getting electrocuted by up
to hundreds of thousands of volts of electricity? To avoid that we would need to design a new
spacesuit with dissipative properties that would never allow potentially dangerous
electric discharges to damage them, or cause harm to the astronauts wearing them. You
might think a good insulating material is rubber, and you would be right, but this would
have to be balanced against the extreme temperature fluctuations these suits might have
to face. After all, what would happen to rubber in an environment where temperatures could
potentially reach minus 247 degrees Celsius? There are multiple undergoing projects though
that are working on finding a solution to these and other problems, but so far nothing
definitive has come of it yet. To avoid regolith, a team at the Washington State University was
granted $130,000 by NASA on a project involving liquid nitrogen, which has properties that allow
it to capture dust, like regolith, from surfaces, allowing lunar bases to be kept cleaner and avoid
risks of getting it contaminated. NASA is also working on a technology involving Electrodynamic
Dust Shields, consisting of electrically charged panels which, through wires, shoot currents
able to wipe away the regolith from surfaces. A pretty cool way of cleaning! There is also
a revolutionary new technology being developed by NTENTION, a Norwegian tech company,
which is working on a project called ASG. This technology could potentially enable
remote human explorations and missions by using a human-machine interface (HMI) which allows
people to control rovers, robotic arms, or even machineries with the swing of one hand. They are
working on including this technology in spacesuits which could have fascinating implications for
future missions to the Moon, and even Mars. This would allow astronauts to stay safe inside bases
while the machines are doing the job on the field. China, in collaboration with Russia and other
countries, is planning to send three missions by 2029 called Chang’e 6, 7, and 8 which will
be targeting the south pole where they plan to establish by 2030 a robotic station. The US
also plans to have a lunar base by 2030 on the lunar south pole with NASA’s Artemis program.
They plan on launching their first non-manned flight test Artemis 1, followed by a crewed flight
test, Artemis 2, and finally launch Artemis 3, which will happen no earlier than 2025 and that
may be our first manned mission to the Moon since 1972. So, although there are still many
challenges to establishing bases on the moon, returning there within our lifetimes is becoming
increasingly realistic. Any environment in space is dangerous, and the Moon is no exception. But
as scientists continue to recognise and overcome these challenges, humanity will be able to take
its first steps off our home planet. And once we have mastered the Moon, the wider solar system
awaits… with all its exciting planets and moons! The incredible thing about humans is the ability
to innovate. We’ve just had plenty of examples of trying to solve real-world space-faring problems,
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check the links in the descriptions below. All best, and see you next time.
