Water on the Moon, Data from multiple missions seems to indicate... |
Water on the Moon, Data from multiple missions seems to indicate... |
Sep 24 2009, 12:23 AM
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 2785 Joined: 10-November 06 From: Pasadena, CA Member No.: 1345 |
This probably deserves it's own thread. Seems the evidence is not specific to only one mission...
space.com article: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/0909...-discovery.html -------------------- Some higher resolution images available at my photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31678681@N07/
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Sep 26 2009, 01:01 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 646 Joined: 23-December 05 From: Forest of Dean Member No.: 617 |
The solar wind aetiology is certainly interesting, but practical just doesn't come into it.
Apart from the basic arithmetic about theoretical water yield per square meter and energy required to extract it Doug provided, what would such a vehicle look like? Here's an approximate terrestrial analogue, running at a few km/h, taking the top inch or two of a surface and dumping it harvester-style into a following tender (note: no further processing happens at this stage.) These things mass in the order of 20-30 tons, and of course need regular teardown maintenance and rebuild (neglecting the tender and other supporting infrastructure.) What would a soft-landing of a self-repairing, self-powered, autonomous version of such a machine on the moon look like, as a back-of-a-fag-packet concept? Mars, on the other hand,.. is another thread -------------------- --
Viva software libre! |
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Sep 26 2009, 09:59 PM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 293 Joined: 22-September 08 From: Spain Member No.: 4350 |
As a curiousity, would water ice survive a lunar day inside the descent stage of the Apollo Lunar Module?
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Sep 27 2009, 07:19 PM
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#4
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Member Group: Members Posts: 544 Joined: 17-November 05 From: Oklahoma Member No.: 557 |
As a curiousity, would water ice survive a lunar day inside the descent stage of the Apollo Lunar Module? A complicated question. You have fuel tanks, engine parts, batteries and black boxes, various bays, all kinds of nooks and crannies. You'd have to specify a location in the descent stage (preferably saying which descent stage, they are at different latitudes and orientations), and then someone with the proper engineering knowlege (not me) could do a thermal analysis. Since it's mostly metal, you would expect the temperature to even out a lot, and that the noon temperature would probably put the whole thing above freezing. But still, there are going to be hotter and colder areas. And what exactly the ice is attached to will make a difference in conductivity. Also you need to know how much ice. Big chunk, ...little chunk, ...snowflake? What did you have in mind? My guess, and it really is only a guess, is that standing above the lunar surface in roasting sunlight for several earth days will heat up the whole thing enough to do a lot of damage to interior ice. |
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