Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Image credit: NASA

There is a growing business in selling fake Moon dirt. It is labeled as “simulant,” customized concoctions of lunar topside that are celestial stand-ins for different areas on the Moon.

The airless body is pounded by solar wind, radiation and micrometeorites. The Moon is blanketed by grayish, sharp-edged particles and rocky debris termed the lunar regolith. At one-sixth the gravity of Earth, that world is a Disneyland of dust that can stick to space suits, gum up equipment and jam mechanical components.

Lunar simulant is used to test a rover at Michigan Tech’s Planetary Surface Technology Development Lab.
Image credit: Michigan Technological University

The knowhow to wrestle with the woes of operating on the Moon took center stage at the 23rd meeting of the Space Resources Roundtable, held in Golden, Colorado on June 6 through 9 at the Colorado School of Mines.

For more information, go to my new Multiverse Media SpaceRef story “Mimicking the Moon – Here’s the (Simulant) Dirt” – at:

https://spaceref.com/science-and-exploration/mimicking-the-moon-heres-the-simulant-dirt/