Questions tagged [the-moon]
Questions about Earth's Moon. Also for questions about spacecraft, manned missions, potential missions, etc. related to Earth's Moon.
886 questions
5votes
1answer
185views
Astronauts on the Moon or Mars, and the potential for lunar silica dust in lungs; health issues or concerns, and mitigation plans?
I have read that the dust on the Moon is composed largely of silica (silicon dioxide; $\require{mhchem}$ $\ce{SiO_2}$) and breathing lots of silica can lead to silicosis which is similar to black lung ...
- 51
24votes
5answers
5kviews
Does the Moon really need its own atomic clocks and timescales, separate from those used on and around Earth?
Recently there was a flurry of "The Moon needs it's own atomic clocks" popular news items (see a sampling, below). The premise is that since "time works differently there" and ...
- 153k
3votes
2answers
936views
Could a laser communications satellite be placed in orbit around the moon to act as a relay for deep space missions?
Communication is a big problem for deep space missions. Astroforge had large connectivity issues with their Odin mission (https://www.astroforge.com/updates/odin-learnings). Whilst blue ghost is using ...
- 345
-3votes
2answers
191views
Tradeoffs between mining asteroids vs the Moon
At the moment, it seems like popular sentiment is saying Lunar Mining is significantly better than Near-Earth Asteroid mining. This seems illogical to me: Near-Earth Asteroids have near zero gravity, ...
- 345
20votes
4answers
8kviews
Did the Moon really "ring like a bell" when "Apollo 12 punted its ascent stage" into it? If "no one knows why" exactly, what are the primary theories?
The YouTube transcript from The Vintage Space video Crashing Apollo Spacecraft for Science after about 00:29 includes the following. It refers to the seismometer instrument as part of the ALSEP ...
- 153k
2votes
1answer
209views
Disappearance of Tranquility Base
According to Timeline of the far future Armstrong's lunar footsteps will disappear in about a million years due to space weathering. When will the other physical artefacts of tranquility base ...
1vote
1answer
160views
Did I really see that much detail on the ISS, or something else?
The evening of Jan.3, 2024, while dragging bins uphill to our garage near Olympia, WA, clouds suddenly cleared to reveal a bright sliver moon, &…...the ISS?!? I was facing nominally south. It was ...
1vote
0answers
97views
How to make use of the Sodium Tail of the Moon?
The moon is known to have a sodium tail. How can humans on the moon to make use of them? Or they shall just let it be?
- 289
4votes
0answers
138views
How can I determine the link budget, baud rate and bandwidth for a hypothetical satellite orbiting the Moon? Are my calculations path correct?
How can I determine the baud rate and bandwidth for a hypothetical satellite orbiting the Moon? I am trying to calculate a link budget for a hypothetical Earth-Moon CubeSat. The parameters I am using ...
- 103
8votes
1answer
4kviews
Why do researchers wear white hats when handling lunar samples?
Credit: Nature, which in turn credits Xinhua / Shutterstock The caption says "Researchers retrieve lunar samples from the Chang’e-6 return capsule". Why are they wearing white hats? Only ...
- 391
0votes
0answers
236views
How much payload could Falcon 9 send to a 100km lunar orbit?
SpaceX has said that Falcon 9 can send 4020 kilograms to Mars. However, I can't seem to find the payload capacity to lunar orbit. So, how much payload can Falcon 9 send to a lunar orbit at an altitude ...
3votes
0answers
99views
Where to find practice photos from Apollo training (ALSCC in particular)
We have lots of photos of the Apollo astronauts during their training sessions, and multiple sources mention practice photography, particularly panoramas (see Did Apollo-11 astronauts rehearse their ...
- 205
1vote
0answers
42views
Topocentric ecliptic coordinates for Moon's nodes from JPL's Horizons
I have been trying to get the ecliptic coordinates for the ascending and descending nodes of the Moon from any observation point on earth. I have used JPL Horizon's ephemeris for osculating elements ...
- 11
5votes
1answer
544views
What is the optimum lunar latitude for a solar farm and hydrolysis plant?
What is the optimum lunar latitude for a solar farm and hydrolysis plant? Water is hypothesized to be present at the lunar poles. There have been proposals to hydrolyzed it into propellant. Large ...
- 33k
4votes
0answers
107views
Does the low conductivity of regolith limit lunar surface radio communication?
The maximum distance of radio communication depends on the carrier wave frequency. For shortwave, carrier wave range exceeds line-of-sight by utilizing skywave (ionosphere) reflection. Medium carrier ...
- 33k
