NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) is now on station, orbiting the moon every two hours. The LADEE spacecraft comes to within 8 miles of the lunar surface at its closest point! That's what comes of a tenuous atmosphere.
(LADEE status video 2013)
LADEE's orbit carries the car-size spacecraft around the moon's equator, allowing the probe repeatedly see the moon during lunar day and night. Scientists hope it will be able to see strange, glowing "rays and streamers" in the moon's atmosphere that were first seen in early unmanned lunar photographs and reports from Apollo lunar landing astronauts.
Science fiction writers in the 1950's and 1960's were fascinated by the possibility that the moon might be covered in dust - no one knew how much - and how it would affect lunar exploration.
SF author Hal Clement predicted in a 1956 short story that electrostatically charged lunar dust particles might actually suspend themselves above the surface:
"…The [Moon's] surface material is one of the lousiest imaginable electrical conductors, so the dust normally on the surface picks up and keeps a charge. And what, dear student, happens to particles carrying like electrical charges?"
"They are repelled from each other."
(From Dust Rag, Astounding Science Fiction, 1956)
One of LADEE's mission parameters is to try to determine levels of dust in the thin lunar atmosphere.
Taikonaut Tai Chi Foot Loops
'Jimmy Cardigan and Harlowe, staring through the darkside port, had their feet in the foot-loops...' - Murray Leinster, 1931.
Space Billboards Would Ruin Our View Of The Cosmos
'But the rising sign, as it had been designed to do, held his eyes. A vast circle of scarlet stars came up into the greenish desert dusk.' - Jack Williamson, 1939.
Orion's 'Skip-to-M'Lou' Entry
'A lightning pilot possibly could land that tin toy without power and still walk away from it provided he had the skill to play Skip-to-M’Lou in and out of the atmosphere...' - Robert Heinlein, 1958.
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Orion's 'Skip-to-M'Lou' Entry
'A lightning pilot possibly could land that tin toy without power and still walk away from it provided he had the skill to play Skip-to-M’Lou in and out of the atmosphere...'