Moon Dust will be a major problem once people will return and settle there. We need to find ways to clean it from space suits, equipment, etc. In this interview, I’m talking with Ian Wells, who is a cryogenics researcher suggesting a way to battle Moon dust with liquid nitrogen.
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00:00 Intro
01:13 How bad is lunar dust
09:34 Liquid nitrogen spray
13:31 How can it be used
19:09 Mars dust
24:55 Risks for humans
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Um
About as healthy as breathing volcanic ash.
Indeed the Apollo spacesuits were critically damaged during Apollo 17 after 22 hours of EVA due to the extreme abrasion at the hand of Moon dust (not to mention plenty of other deleterious side effects on every other equipment and on the astronauts lungs). Nasa wants to increase the lifespan of those suits to 800 hours…
But I thought what they were going for is to integrate, in the most outer layer of suit (which counts more than 20 of them I think), a woven longitudinal fabric of carbon nanotubes to circulate an electrical current of 1000 volts and 3 mAh so to create a coulombic repulsion force that will effectively eject the charged Moon dust from the suit surface. Challenges, among others, is to integrate that fabric while retaining a good mobility/flexibility for the suit and avoid any dielectric breakdown of the insulating layer material.
They have tested their special fabric with those lines of nanotubes and it seems to work very well… 1000 volts with a 3 mAh current gives out 3 watts per hour, very manageable for the energy source of the suit. But I guess that Nitrogen idea could be part of a set of solutions. It could be used for plenty of other equipment if not for the suits themselves.
Hello Fraiser,
that was again a very special super video and interview. And the solution is of course ingenious! Especially since it is clear to us space nerds that the problem of dust is so incredibly significant.
It was also great that you came up with the topic of solar collectors. Because when you think about how much valuable research equipment on Mars has gone out of service because no more solar energy could be generated due to the dust… If such cleaning devices would be installed there, what a huge progress that would be! That would save so much time and money!
I watch your channel now for quite a while and am super happy to have found him. Also because you have found so great connections to great professionals, but also because you are not only about space travel, but also about what this is there for. It's just an ideal mix!
And of course I also read your newsletter and can only warmly recommend it to everyone!
Good luck Fraiser! I will recommend you with pleasure – and of course watch your great videos 🙂
Seb, 5…, Berlin, Germany
Just a thought, you do your spraying with the airlock outer door open, and the nitrogen escaping pushes the dust out as it blows it off the surfaces.
Space travel and long-term survival in space and on other planets is extremely complex. The earth we live on is nothing like most of the places we will travel true or try to survive on. Radiation, dust, temperature, atmosphere, gravity, and a million other things are totally different. Mankind will have its work cut out for it.
I was thinking compressor stations are going to be on top of the list of priorities. I made a functional prototype of an idea I had, with gas pressure in mind, that I thought might be useful in low gravity. But somebody has probably created something similar before me, it's not high tech.
We just need a large sonic shower. Easy.
at 15 minutes Ian talks about using the very cold bottoms of the lunar polar cryogenic craters to liquefy the nitrogen for reuse. Those craters over geological time have condensed the volatiles of the temporary atmosphere created by impacts by comets and impact by asteroids from beyond the solar system frost line. The primary volatile is water but ammonia (NH3) is on the list. Of course, to mine those volatiles they will probably develop cryogenic telepresence robots.
If the dust is charged, why not just charge the space suits with the same polarity to repel the dust? is that possible?
Question: could rubble pile asteroids be split up with magnets?
Hi Fraser,
What was that at 9:39?
Start from 9:34.
How will the nitrogen get into the wrinkles and creases? Is the nitrogen reusable? Why is nitrogen wash better than indium tin oxide coating or electrostatic fibers?
And we only need to dedicate 90% of the mission payload to carrying liquid nitrogen to clean up after a single spacewalk. Brilliant.
Does the lunar dust loose it's charge after being removed by liquid nitrogen?
Yay for space sprinklers😅
Space is hard! Every time I hear that, the reasoning behind it from the person just makes it a little closer to home. We’ve got it easy down here 😊.
I'd think using IR light might increase the effectiveness by directly heating the surface being cleaned.
Lunar dirt is the main problem that's often overlooked when it comes to talk of colonizing the Moon.
This is a really good interview! Thank you for making such an in-depth video.
I remember liquid nitrogen from my chem lab days. It was so weird and unpredictable, and had a habit of climbing up over the edge of beakers to spill all over the lab bench. Some of it got on my fingers, but it was already boiling and didn't hurt. Very neat stuff.
Great interview, but…. Yes & no, the liquid nitrogen should last longer if a small rocket engine with a "cool" exhaust is used first as a blow gun. Powdered ice in a sandblasting machine is also an excellent residue free abrasive for many specialized uses, removing dust that's been ground into metal comes to mind. And I am a long standing fan of using small rocket engines as blow guns to remove the dust from ET construction sites both before & after construction. Also, SpaceX moon ships could "hover" using their landing engines as giant air dusters to remove a large part of the dust from large areas. The challenge is moving large volumes of dust without throwing dust into lunar orbit. On Mars they said the Martian tornadoes do a pretty good job of removing Martian dust, so only critical parts might be all that need hosing down with liquid nitrogen. And on Mars there will be billions of gallons of methalox production, so how well liquid CO2, CH4 & O2 work as cleaning agents also deserves their study.
The temperature difference mentioned on the moon is a potential source for producing energy without costly solar panels.
Using a Sterling Engine to produce electricity would be one innovation, as it relies on a temperature difference to operate by having one half in a crater thus shading it and the other half exposed to sunlight.
Getting the dust out of the bearings and joints could be as simple as something like a grease nipple. You connect some type of liquid in a can to it and squirt it in and flush the dust out.
This sounds like something that should be tested on Artemis III.
Thanks, Fraser. Always a pleasure listening to you.
Random question that popped into my head: Pulsar timing arrays have been in operation for almost two decades now. Have they discovered anything interesting? I don't think I've heard any news about them at all.
I watched a few of your videos months ago and I guess the topics weren't really up my alley but I just watched a few more and I'm so hooked. Your Q&As and interviews are just awesome. I'm happy to have subscribed and can't wait to watch your subscriber count soar. Bravo, good sir. I'll be sure to leave plenty of comments and share your content frequently.
There are videos of people pouring liquid N2 on their hands and it just boils off without harm.
There is no erosion on the Moon. So the dust/regolith is jagged and can cut. Very bad if inhaled.
Interesting interview, great work Ian, go Cougs 🏈
Awesome follow on interview! I love this community. 🍺🙂
Many years ago i worked with 2 old boys Sid and Charlie at a place where RR used to test liquid fuels rockets. The Cryo liquid producing plants were running correctly the over produced what could be stored and Sid told me they used to clean the floors with Liquid N2 just throw a bucket of it across the floor it brings the dust into a neat pile. It also keeps the pests down too.
Does this mean artificial gravity is a nessesity for logntime survival on the moon?
Or could it be substitated with a hvac to get dust gravity in the living space?
Doh!!
LOL
What would happen to the layer of dirt on earth if it lost its atmosphere and all life stopped and can we tell if mars ever had a layer of dead organic material or is it just rock under the regalith
That was a really thought provoking video. Thank you Ian and as always, thank you Fraser.
Just build a car wash there.
Nitrogen liquefiers are off the shelf equipment so getting LN2 should not be an issue.
It's L*ei*denfrost effect, not L*ie*denfrost.
You know, like, Einstein and nit Ienstein
Awesome….. Ian Wells has a lot of "Elon" in him, and that's a BIG compliment.
before even watching your vid I already know the simple answer, I learned from Putin, any problem can be solved by "just nuke them". Yw.
Why liquid nitrogen? Why not CO2? Lots of that on mars.
Might it be possible to make airlocks even easier and use a mixture of LN2 and LOX? They have similar boiling points, and then you don't even have to separate them, just condense the air for use as a shower and then let it warm back up into a gas to fill your airlock. I imagine this would be fine with some substances and not so much with others.
Just make sure the moon being heated by the gaseous nitrogen has enough time to cool down through IF radiation, otherwise it'll just heat up and stop liquifying the nitrogen.