Scientists plan to melt moondust to make lunar roads. Astronauts may have to do more moon-driving than moon-walking during future missions.

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 176 points – Scientists plan to melt moondust to make lunar roads
sciencefocus.com

Scientists plan to melt moondust to make lunar roads. Astronauts may have to do more moon-driving than moon-walking during future missions.::If we want space missions to be successful, we need to build Moon roads. Scientists plan to use lasers and moondust - here's how.

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Someone tell the c/FuckCars people, this'll really piss them off lol

My first thought when reading the headline was how pissed is the fuckcars movement gonna be when they find your carbrains are building roads on the moon lol

As much as I'd love to bike on the moon, our rovers don't last more than a few hours at most when dealing with lunar regolith - it's highly abrasive and gets everywhere

Like sand?

Yes, it's very irritating lol. Basically, you know how sand is fairly abrasive by our standards? Well, sand has had millennia to get smoothed over by the natural cycles of our planet. As such, it's fairly smooth all things considered.

Lunar regolith has not had that same opportunity. It is extremely sharp - sharp enough to cut kevlar. There's a reason so much engineering goes into making EVA suits for lunar environments.

I don't like sand it's abrasive course and it gets everywhere wearing my tires down

Cars are great, if there are few. Can't have everyone in one when you live densely.

Those damn murder machines keep ruining all that perfectly good moon cheese. They should simply walk the 13 miles to the mission location instead.

Lol, those people are worse than preachy vegans and Linux supremecists combined. They're one of the few communities I've blocked completely.

Talk to Cave Johnson about the dangers of ground up moon rocks…

Should the headline be “discovered” instead of “plan”? Plan makes it sound like this is in work despite discovering how to do that so recently.

Semantics are secondary to capturing attention with headlines. And it's still just a minor summary of the whole story.

To elaborate, some dudes discovered a way to melt moon rocks to make asphalt. More dudes plan to make moon roads with it.

Cruising in an old chrysler with Frank Sinatra on speakers. Fly me to the moon.

There's one thing they seem to be forgetting.

How the fuck are they gonna send that many people to warrant the road-building? I mean, they could, but would definitely break their banks.

Honestly the number of people required to send is zero, because they're for vehicles and it isn't a strict requirement that they have humans in them.

As long as there is "stuff" that needs transporting, you'll want vehicles, and if you want vehicles you probably want roads.

I keep hearing about going to the moon building this and that but when was last time man set foot there? Just do it already.

Not much point sending people there without any real purpose. Much cheaper and safer to send probes to gather whatever scientific data we need.

I saw a report recently about a 3D printing company that plans to use moon dust for concrete to build lunar housing.

And what's going to protect the lens from the lunar dust?

They might need a diamond lens or something.

Just put the laser high enough above the ground, like in orbit, and nothing will ever reach the lens.

Counting Crows and Vanessa Carlton are tuning their instruments...