Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
 |
Comments on Lunar Dust Fountains Due To Electrostatic Charges
A great article on NASA's website points out how science fiction author Hal Clement predicted in a 1956 short story that electrostatically charged lunar dust particles might actually suspend themselves above the surface: (Read
the complete story)
| "Lunar dust pools also feature in Arthur C. Clarke's A FALL OF MOONDUST. In the Clement story, the astronauts are threatened by the dust electrostatically plating itself over the viewplate of their helmets. They have to resort to basic science in order to save themselves." (Winchell Chung 4/1/2005 6:15:35 AM) |
| "A.C.C. also had another great novel titled 'A Fall of Moondust' which also featured the insulating power of moon dust." (Jeff K 4/4/2005 10:50:57 AM) |
| "The NEAR-Shoemaker Mission to the asteroid Eros found that the bottoms of craters on Eros were flat and filled with fine dust particles. Eros' small mass and low gravity meant that these particles were not collecting at the bottoms of craters due to gravity. It was hypothosized that the dust collected after acquiring an electrostatic charge from solar wind in a slow process that took millions of years." (Ray 4/6/2005 2:10:14 PM) |
| "Interesting...the chief NASA scientist in charge of this is named Stubbs, while "Hal Clement" was the pen-name of the late Harry Stubbs..." (Nekultura 4/9/2005 7:00:42 PM) |
| """Why did you do that?" Wheeler asked anxiously. "We seemed to be getting some where."
"Yes, but we're also getting too hot. This dust is an almost perfect heat insulator..."
There's a problem here. The vacuum on the Moon's surface is a pretty good insulator too.
If you have excess heat to deal with you need some large finned radiators, which should be on the top of the vehicle." (William Carr 1/28/2007 9:50:39 PM) |
| "William Carr - is that from "A Fall of Moondust" or from "Earthlight"?" (Bill Christensen 1/30/2007 1:40:58 PM) |
Get more information on Lunar Dust Fountains Due To Electrostatic Charges
Leave a comment:
Please send your comments to @technovelgy and I'll post them. Thanks!
More Articles
I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...'
Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer
It's a computer, but just barely.
'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
Orwell's Nightmare Of AI-Written Novels Comes To Pass
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
ISS Plagued By Leak - Again!
'There were perhaps a dozen bladder-like objects in the tunnel...'
Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
Outdoor Video Screens Can Be Arbitrarily Large
The Shape of Things To Come
Infrared Contact Lenses To See In The Dark
'I can see in the dark, Case.'
What'll You Have? Extinct Animals Returned, Or Synthetic Eggshells?
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
Sunbird Pulsar Fusion Like Leinster's Space Tug
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
RentAHuman App Lets AI Agents Hire Humans
'She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew about whatever it was that she was playing with on her screen.'
Unitree CEO Wang Xingxing Runs With His G1 Robot Army
'Does thinking you're the last sane man on the face of the Earth make you crazy?'
AIs Turn Marxist Under Bad Management
'It was a general strike of the robots...'
Moscow Attacked By Hundreds Of Drones
'It hurtled on down with inconceivable speed until it was visible as thousands of tiny robot planes...'
Nifty Folding Electric Bicycles!
'Separate paths were provided for them...'
FTC: Says Ring Employees Illegally Surveilled Customers
'Then she looked up with a smile and moved closer to the camera.'
Switzerland May Cap Population At Ten Million
'The population of Castle Hagedorn was fixed...'
Project Silica Offers 'Long-Term' Digital Storage
'... folios and tapes and playable discs of platinum alloy.'
Can 'Tactical Umbrellas' Shield One From Drones
'... another corner of his mind began to think about the shields.'
