Protection of the space suit on the outside

On the day-lit side of the Moon, solar ultraviolet and X-ray radiation is energetic enough to knock electrons out of atoms in the lunar soil, thus making them positively charged. We've decided to implement another layer in the astronaut's space suits to help with this problem. The additional layer intertwines with copper wires that create an electromagnetic field around the spacesuit and repel the positively-charged dust particles when we put a current through them. In order to protect the electronics on the spacesuit, we've implemented a second layer, that would cage the inside of the suit with a Faraday cage on the inside layer.

Connection between the suit and the hatch

One of the major problems the Apollo missions faced, was the lunar dust that got inside the spacecraft. This can cause severe health problems like severe forms of silicosis, acute silicoproteinosis. This leads to a lipid rich protein accumulation in the alveoli, which is fatal within a few years [1] .

To prevent similar health risks, the suits that astronauts wear will have to be connected to the hatches in a way that allowed people to enter and leave them without the outside of the suit entering the pressured part of the vehicle. The suits would have labyrinth seals at their backs and the astronauts would have to connect the suit to the station & enter it while leaving the suit in the vacuum (the detection & cleaning module) [4].

The space suit clean-up on the base

A small module for cleaning the suit would be constructed before the entrance to any hatch. Once inside, the spacesuit would be bombarded with UVA light(315–400 nm), in order to increase the absorption in the ferric region of the UV upon radiation-induced oxidation [2].

In the study done by Dr.David J. Loftus and his team, lunar dust was exposed to unfiltered lightshining UV light to measure the absorption of those waves by the suit and the particles. It was found that, while shining a 200-W lamp on lunar dust particles for 16 hours, their albedo changed from 0.090 to 0.096: marked increase in the absorption of UV rays. Perhaps we could shorten this time by shining a beam of almost only UVA rays (enough so it doesn’t damage the suit) and therefore reduce the detection time to hopefully a few minutes because we do not need to know the location of every single particle of the moon dust. We only need to locate the places with intense oxidation to understand where the majority for the lunar dust is located. This process might take much less time and less energy to perform, however, the results will give us enough information to work with.

Once the areas with major concentrations of lunar dust are detected, we can proceed to the dust removal stage. In place of a giant electromagnetic field, the size of an entire module, we've decided to use a smaller, brush-like tool that would work just like a Van de Graaff generator. The negatively charged part would attract positively charged lunar dust particles, that would be removed with a vacuum cleaner every few minutes. Then the process would be repeated until the suit maintenance is done.

The walls of the room would also be negatively charged to attract any free particles.

(Google Image)

To facilitate decontamination, a vibration of 10-20 Hz would help the particles fall off the suit, even when they are trapped in between fibers. This will be achieved by connecting the suit at a vibrating module at the back, shoulders and the waist.

Figure 3 : Cleaning performance with and without applying vibration (0.6 mm pitch, 900 V)

(Kawamoto, Hiroyuki. (2012). Electrostatic Cleaning Device for Removing Lunar Dust Adhered to Spacesuits. Journal of Aerospace Engineering. 25. 470-473. 10.1061/(ASCE)AS.1943-5525.0000143.)

Proper seal protection

Even with proper protection with lunar dust being repelled by an electromagnetic field, there is still a high chance of it getting inside seals, damaging them and thus preventing them from sealing correctly. All hatches will have to use labyrinth seals in order to minimize the chance of lunar dust damaging it. However, even the labyrinth seals might let some dust particles enter the space craft, so to deal with this problem, we've implemented the same concept as with the space suit - an electromagnetic field around the hatch what would slow down the dust particles.

Directed microwave emitter

According to a NASA cooperative research with the Planetary Geosciences Institute at the University of Tennessee [3], the moon soils couples extremely well with microwaves, and thus a sample from the moon would begin to boil faster than water if put inside a normal 2.45 MHz kitchen microwave.

This means that a source of directed microwaves could act as a “melting beam”, melting suspended dust particles and thus making them stick together and potentially fall on the ground and provide artificial weathering, since liquids in low gravity take a shape of a sphere, and as a result remove majority of sharp edges.

Sources:

- http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1970GeCAS...1.2199H&defaultprint=YES&filetype=.pdf

- https://www.lpi.usra.edu/decadal/leag/DavidJLoftus.pdf

- http://www.electrostatics.org/images/ESA_2008_O1.pdf

- https://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/books/lunar_sourcebook/pdf/LunarSourceBook.pdf

- https://ascelibrary.org/doi/pdf/10.1061/%28ASCE%29AS.1943-5525.0000084

Work cited:

[1] David J. Loftus, Erin M. Tranfield, Jon C. Rask, Clara McCrosssin, 2009. The Chemical Reactivity of Lunar Dust Relevant to Human Exploration of the Moon. NASA Ames Research Center .

[2] Hapke B. W., Cohen, A. J., Cassidy, W. A., and Wells, E. N., 1970. Solar Radiation Effects inLunar Samples. Proceeding of the Apollo 11 Lunar Science Conference, Vol. 3, pp. 2199 to 2212.

[3] Taylor, Lawrence & Schmitt, Harrison & Carrier, W. & Nakagawa, Masami. (2005). The Lunar Dust Problem: From Liability to Asset. 1. 10.2514/6.2005-2510.

[4] Robert Boyle, Liana M. Rodriggs, Charles Allton, Mallory Jennings and Lindsay T. Aitchison, 2013. Suitport Feasibility - Human Pressurized Space Suit Donning Tests with the Marman Clamp and Pneumatic Flipper Suitport Concepts. National Aeronautics and Space Administration