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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)

#71

Post by zamadatix »

themafia wrote: post #53
AngryData wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also have to remember that those astronauts were some of the most physically fit individuals in a nation of hundreds of millions which may skew the expected medical outcomes. Especially if we assume they always had the best healthcare available, if from nothing else than doctors asking similiar qiestions about the effects of space travel.

The military does not survey the population and then select the fittest. So, as a function, it cannot actually perform as you say. It's the same with F1. "We have the best drivers in the world!" You have the best drivers from the self-selection mechanism you impose on the sport. There are zero reasons to think these categories have good overlap.

They don't need to have sampled the entire population to have ended up with some of the most x individuals of the nation of y population size, they just need a large enough pool that the top end up among some of the best.

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

#72

Post by [deleted] »

mr_toad wrote: post #69
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

> That will require that humans never come in contact with the regolith or things that touched it. It’s really only a concern if you ingest it.

[deleted]

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

#73

Post by LorenPechtel »

darknavi wrote: post #32
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

If this fact piques your interest, the book Delta-v by Daniel Suarez glances off this fact and uses it to justify exploring asteroid mining instead of a colony on Mars.

I'm not impressed with his science.

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

#74

Post by corysama »

Bender wrote: post #40
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…

My UV sterilizing lights make my room smell like O3 Ozone and that smells nothing like spent gun-powder to me. The only other time I have smelled the same thing is when there has been mass lightening events in the sky. Were they talking about actual black powder or nitrocellulose? I've smelled black powder at the range when people bring out their antique rifles and that also does not smell like Ozone to me.

The ozone report was specifically about space walks. The gunpowder report was about moon walks.

Presumably, moonwalks would also have some ozone like the space walk did. But, maybe the burning-moon-dust gunpowder smell was a lot stronger than the vacuumed-metal/paint ozone smell.

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

#75

Post by naravara »

wolvoleo wrote: post #62
operatingthetan wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that sense then the term "terraforming" is on equal footing with alchemy.

Doing something like that at planetary scale is science fiction anyway even if we did have the tech to do it.

If you can kick off self-sustaining biological processes it’ll happen on its own eventually, but you’d just be looking at generational time scales to do it.

Of course you’ll probably have lots of side-effects.

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

#76

Post by ozgung »

tim-tday wrote: post #20
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

Yeah, the ground on mars is literally toxic. Makes the concept of a Martian colony less appealing. Almost equal to a floating station on Venus. At least there you’d have the correct pressure. I seem to recall that the temperature on Venus at an altitude of one atmospheric pressure is manageable. It’s just also acidic. Possibility easier to deal with than perchlorates.

Sadly we underestimate the liveability of this Earth. Muskism makes people believe to the false premise that we can just buy a new planet, make it habitable with magical tech. Supported with pseudoscientific buzzwords like Terraforming etc. So we can recklessly consume this planet and jump to our new home when this one depletes. No need to care about our current home because it's a jumping board. Interesting as an old Sci-Fi fantasy so it attracts smart people, but if you really think about it's just lies and stupidity.

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

#77

Post by LorenPechtel »

nradov wrote: post #60
lukan wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without massive terraforming all of Mars is very hostile. But having solid ground is still nice. A workable compromise is making big habitats in a dome, that gives sunlight, but shields from radiation. And the ground needs to be processed obviously. The advantage of Venus to me is is gravity.

Which dome construction material would be transparent to sunlight but block ionizing radiation?

1) Why do you need sunlight?

2) If you have a source of hydrogen: water. Bonus as you don't have to make the dome hold pressure. A layer of water of the right depth will generate the force needed, the structure only needs to keep itself level. The only pressure holding is outside that, enough to keep the water from boiling. And, well, it's water--if it's hit by a rock that isn't too big you'll just have hole in the top layer, easily fixed. The same general idea would work on the Moon but the water is far from transparent if you pile up enough of it and you need a lot of hydrogen.

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

#78

Post by lukan »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #77
nradov wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which dome construction material would be transparent to sunlight but block ionizing radiation?

1) Why do you need sunlight? 2) If you have a source of hydrogen: water. Bonus as you don't have to make the dome hold pressure. A layer of water of the right depth will generate the force needed, the structure only needs to keep itself level. The only pressure holding is outside that, enough to keep the water from boiling. And, well, it's water--if it's hit by a rock that isn't too big you'll just have hole in the t…

Well, I did wrote "gives sunlight" and that is a valid reply to it. But ... I would need sunlight actually. That seems somewhat possible with light tubes, but the much nicer solution, a transparent dome to still see mars clouds at day and the stars at night, is indeed not possible with current materials.

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

#79

Post by LorenPechtel »

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

Personally, I suspect all anoxic environments will turn out to be unhealthy for humans. You'll have a bunch of reactive stuff about that on Earth would have been neutralized long ago.

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

#80

Post by generic92034 »

wolvoleo wrote: post #62
operatingthetan wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that sense then the term "terraforming" is on equal footing with alchemy.

Doing something like that at planetary scale is science fiction anyway even if we did have the tech to do it.

I would not be so pessimistic. Look what the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria have done for our atmosphere.
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