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All 12 moonwalkers had "lunar hay fever" from dust smelling like gunpowder (2018)

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Re: All 12 moonwalkers had "lunar hay fever" from dust smelling like gunpowder (2018)

#151

Post by stonecharioteer »

ItsClo688 wrote: post #144
corysama wrote: post #34

I recall an article from a long time ago that basically said “astronauts report” the moon smells like spent gunpowder and outer space smell like… I think it was ozone. What they were actually reporting was the smell of the airlocks after they returned from their excursions. The moon has no atmosphere, so it has been accumulating dust from billions of years of asteroid impacts that have never come in contact with oxyg…

the detail that kills me is moon dust has never contacted oxygen in billions of years, so every time an astronaut came back inside they were essentially doing a chemistry experiment for the first time. the whole moon is just waiting to react with air

This is what trips me up about terraforming. If we learn to create an atmosphere, are we going to instantly poison the oxygen we introduce?

Re: All 12 moonwalkers had "lunar hay fever" from dust smelling like gunpowder (2018)

#152

Post by vl »

Bender wrote: post #133
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry for the tangent, but you sterilise a whole room with UV light? Is that efficient ? Do you do it after tidying / cleaning ? Is there a medical reason for the extra part? Is it just cool :-)

The house came with a bacteria that would normally be hard to get rid of. UV, bleach and peroxide took care of it. I just repeat the process to ensure there is no bacteria or mold. This seems to bother people in this thread which I find fascinating. A part of me wants to bring my black light to their dwelling.

I have mold problem in one of the bathrooms. What would be your recommendation? Seal off bathroom and run UV, then vent? Or do I need to do entire house? I can also seal off bathroom and bedroom. Thanks!

Re: All 12 moonwalkers had "lunar hay fever" from dust smelling like gunpowder (2018)

#154

Post by ItsClo688 »

stonecharioteer wrote: post #151
ItsClo688 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the detail that kills me is moon dust has never contacted oxygen in billions of years, so every time an astronaut came back inside they were essentially doing a chemistry experiment for the first time. the whole moon is just waiting to react with air

This is what trips me up about terraforming. If we learn to create an atmosphere, are we going to instantly poison the oxygen we introduce?

great questionprobably not poison it directly, but you'd lose a significant chunk to oxidation reactions before reaching any stable equilibrium. the surface is essentially a massive reactive sink. mars has a similar problem, the perchlorate in the soil would react badly with a lot of things we'd want to introduce. the optimistic read is that oxidation reactions release energy and eventually reach stability. the pessimistic read is the timescale is geological.

Re: All 12 moonwalkers had "lunar hay fever" from dust smelling like gunpowder (2018)

#155

Post by fulafel »

krunck wrote: post #9

Mars has toxic levels of perchlorates in the regolith. That will require that humans never come in contact with the regolith or things that touched it. Those space suits that dock to vehicles seem like a necessity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perchlorate#On_Mars

I'm not a Mars colonisation advocate, but sounds like exposure to that may be manageable:

"Perchlorate is toxic to people only in the sense that it can disrupt the production of thyroid hormone, an important growth hormone needed by babies in the womb for normal development." (from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/perchlorate-life-...)

Lots of people have this condition without perchlorate after all and it's just simple meds to fix it.

Re: All 12 moonwalkers had "lunar hay fever" from dust smelling like gunpowder (2018)

#158

Post by notepad0x90 »

tyrowvgt wrote: post #156

Unbelievable, billions spent on sending few to moon while millions are dying homeless here

sounds like you're focusing on the wrong billions, the war on iran alone could provide housing to all homeless in the US.

It's not for a lack of money people are homeless in the US (which is launching this). it's for a lack of political will, because voters don't want to provide free housing to homeless people. They're more concerned about being able to buy instead of rent a house (less apartments, more houses) or protect the value of their house ("no homeless people near me, and certainly an abundance of housing reduces prices for my house investment").

Hey, at least those issues won't be a problem, if homeless people can charter a flight to Mars, if these efforts pan out.

Re: All 12 moonwalkers had "lunar hay fever" from dust smelling like gunpowder (2018)

#159

Post by dreamcompiler »

genewitch wrote: post #147
rrr_oh_man wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Side quest: Can you tell more about the UV sterilisation thing? Why do you do that? How often? Where? It seems like such a specific thing to do.

Hi, i am not who you asked, but i feel like i've done enough research and have some warnings. UV-C light itself is antimicrobial, but only for surfaces that the light touches, and in the case of cloth it needs to penetrate a bit. There are at least two types of UV-C light bulbs, as well as literal ozone generators that use ceramic platen and a fan. The type of UV-C bulb that is most common on Amazon and Ali is ~254 n…

> WARNING: Do not be in the room with any UV-C light for more than a few seconds.

This advice does not necessarily apply to far UVC (200-235 nm), which appears to be much safer for human skin and corneas than UVC outside this specific band. More research is needed before calling it "safe" but far UVC is almost certainly less hazardous than the rest of the UVC band.

Pay close attention to wavelength when purchasing UVC light sources.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-UVC

Re: All 12 moonwalkers had "lunar hay fever" from dust smelling like gunpowder (2018)

#160

Post by charlieyu1 »

krunck wrote: post #9

Mars has toxic levels of perchlorates in the regolith. That will require that humans never come in contact with the regolith or things that touched it. Those space suits that dock to vehicles seem like a necessity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perchlorate#On_Mars

Can we decompose the perchlorates for oxygen and energy?
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