By 
July 11th, 2021
The Impact of Lunar Dust on Human Exploration, Edited by Joel S. Levine; Cambridge Scholars Publishing; 303 Pages; January 2021; Hardcover: £64.99.
As humans prepare to replant their boots on the Moon, a major lesson from NASA’s Project Apollo is that dealing with lunar dust turned out to be a dilemma. For one, Lunar Module lander descent rockets caused large amounts of surface dust to move into the thin lunar atmosphere, causing obscuration of the lunar surface. That made touchdowns difficult and dangerous.
Moreover, once out and about, moonwalkers coped with very fine, tiny particles composed of sharp, glassy material. Indeed, lunar dust stuck to everything it came in contact with; dust eroded their spacesuits, caused overheating on equipment and instrumentation, compromised seals on their spacesuits and on lunar sample collecting boxes, as well as irritated the eyes and lungs of moonwalkers.
This excellent volume summarizes what we know about lunar dust, its structure and chemical composition, its impact on human health, and how to reduce/mitigate its effects on future human exploration. The four dozen contributors to the 14 chapters in the book are planetary scientists, engineers, mission planners, medical researchers and physicians from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), as well as universities and industry from the United States, Australia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden.
Rich in detail, the reader will find a treasure trove of lessons from Apollo and a look ahead to what future expeditions will face. There’s a bounty of data here, be it the history and future perspectives for the evaluation of the toxicity of celestial dust to lunar dust mitigation strategy and testing through simulation and analogs.
Editor Joel S. Levine is a research professor in applied science at the College of William and Mary, USA, and a consultant to NASA’s Engineering and Safety Center at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. This compilation of excellent and fact-filled papers is a must-have for researchers and general readers too.
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