All 12 moonwalkers had "lunar hay fever" from dust smelling like gunpowder (2018)

152

ccybermango about 3 hours ago 79 commentsRead Article on esa.int

ES version is available. Content is displayed in original English for accuracy.

⚡ Community Insights

Discussion Sentiment

76% Positive

Analyzed from 1985 words in the discussion.

Discussion (79 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

corysama•about 2 hours ago

I recall an article from a long time ago that basically said “astronauts report” the moon smells like spent gunpowder and outer space smell like… I think it was ozone.

What they were actually reporting was the smell of the airlocks after they returned from their excursions. The moon has no atmosphere, so it has been accumulating dust from billions of years of asteroid impacts that have never come in contact with oxygen. Many of the chemicals in the dust are oxidative and so when it is exposed to air for the first time it rapidly oxidizes just like gunpowder!

And I think the outer space report was from space walks, and the explanation was that the first time the airlock itself was exposed to hard vacuum, the surfaces of the airlock would have a reaction that left a scent of ozone.

jordanb•about 1 hour ago

There was some concern when Apollo 11 landed that when they repressurized the LEM with moon dust samples inside it would start a fire. I think they had a small test article that they blew a small stream of oxygen over to ensure it wouldn't auto-ignite.

helterskelter•about 2 hours ago

At least some ISS astronauts describe smelling burnt metal after returning from EVA, if memory serves. (Others may smell ozone, I've just always remembered hearing burnt metal).

thescriptkiddie•about 1 hour ago

the exterior of the ISS is constantly exposed to small mounts of atomic oxygen, which is an incredibly strong oxidizer. probably in addition to ozone there is a huge variety of organic and inorganic oxides that get tracked in through the airlock.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materials_International_Space_...

sbierwagen•15 minutes ago

Fun trivia (well, perhaps not fun) in the second paragraph: "the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF), which was retrieved in 1990 after spending 68 months in LEO"

Long exposure, 68 months, right. But it was only supposed to be in orbit for 11! Challenger being destroyed on reentry made a mess of things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Duration_Exposure_Facilit...

>It was placed in low Earth orbit by Space Shuttle Challenger in April 1984. [...] At LDEF's launch, retrieval was scheduled for March 19, 1985, eleven months after deployment.[4] Schedules slipped, postponing the retrieval mission first to 1986, then indefinitely due to the Challenger disaster. After 5.7 years its orbit had decayed to about 175 nautical miles (324 km) and it was likely to burn up on reentry in a little over a month.[6][9]: 15

junon•about 2 hours ago

I always heard burnt steak.

Bender•about 2 hours ago

My UV sterilizing lights make my room smell like O3 Ozone and that smells nothing like spent gun-powder to me. The only other time I have smelled the same thing is when there has been mass lightening events in the sky. Were they talking about actual black powder or nitrocellulose? I've smelled black powder at the range when people bring out their antique rifles and that also does not smell like Ozone to me.

mr_toad•about 1 hour ago

‘Ozone’ is the smell of ionisation, ‘gunpowder’ the smell of oxidisation.

coffeebeqn•about 2 hours ago

Photocopiers smell like ozone when they run if anyone’s forgotten the smell

saltcured•about 1 hour ago

I also associate ozone with some electric motors, I think because they have brushes that arc during operation. Older power tools I encountered in the 1980s often did this, and you could see the blue arc if you looked into the vents at the right angle.

Bender•about 2 hours ago

Photocopiers smell like ozone when they run if anyone’s forgotten the smell

Those are similar but sweeter. If I sterilize a room with UV it has a very distinct smell like nothing else aside from lightening and stun guns. I would UV the bathroom right now but then I have to vent the entire house and its 34F outside right now.

corysama•40 minutes ago

The ozone report was specifically about space walks. The gunpowder report was about moon walks.

Presumably, moonwalks would also have some ozone like the space walk did. But, maybe the burning-moon-dust gunpowder smell was a lot stronger than the vacuumed-metal/paint ozone smell.

krunck•about 3 hours ago

Mars has toxic levels of perchlorates in the regolith. That will require that humans never come in contact with the regolith or things that touched it. Those space suits that dock to vehicles seem like a necessity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perchlorate#On_Mars

tim-tday•about 2 hours ago

Yeah, the ground on mars is literally toxic. Makes the concept of a Martian colony less appealing. Almost equal to a floating station on Venus. At least there you’d have the correct pressure. I seem to recall that the temperature on Venus at an altitude of one atmospheric pressure is manageable. It’s just also acidic. Possibility easier to deal with than perchlorates.

LorenPechtel•21 minutes ago

Another interesting one is Mercury. There is a latitude where the average ground temperature is comfortable for us. You simply need to dig in deep enough to put enough thermal mass above you to get that average rather than the swings. I don't know how deep that is on Mercury, on Earth 10 meters is enough. Real world, you'll want to go a bit farther towards the pole so your station is comfortable with the thermal load of whatever equipment you put in it.

lukan•about 2 hours ago

Without massive terraforming all of Mars is very hostile.

But having solid ground is still nice.

A workable compromise is making big habitats in a dome, that gives sunlight, but shields from radiation. And the ground needs to be processed obviously.

The advantage of Venus to me is is gravity.

cosmic_cheese•about 2 hours ago

Gravity kind of cuts both ways. Closer to that of Earth is nearly guaranteed to be better for long term human health, but there's a possibility that martian gravity is "good enough" when supplemented with excercise while also making heavy operations and getting back out of the planet's gravity well easier.

tarr11•about 2 hours ago

I wonder if it will turn out to be easier to adapt lifeforms to the planets than to try to adapt the planets to the lifeforms.

operatingthetan•about 2 hours ago

If we terraform mars, isn't the dirt still toxic?

cduzz•about 2 hours ago

Venus seems like a wonderful place to live, relatively speaking.

At the right altitude where you can "float" on the ocean, it's a pretty comfortable temperature and there's plenty of solar energy but you're shielded from the solar radiation. So, long term, your body will still work, assuming you can solve "the other problems."

Of course, the down-side is that there's nothing to stand on and probably more importantly, there aren't many useful materials to work with besides tons of carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen. Not much hydrogen there, so not much water, which probably is the biggest problem. One of them, anyhow. Also, there's probably not a whole lot to do besides float (zoom, actually) around and slowly go stir crazy in your bubble.

But relatively speaking, it's way nicer than living in a hole on mars where you'll slowly die from gravity sickness, or radiation poisoning, or whatever.

nradov•about 1 hour ago

Which dome construction material would be transparent to sunlight but block ionizing radiation?

card_zero•about 2 hours ago

Since the perchlorate is generated by reaction with sunlight, it might be limited to a surface layer.

Well, I guess that's what regolith means.

kzrdude•about 2 hours ago

Regolith is all the loose stuff, everything that's not bedrock, even if it might be quite deep.

vondur•about 2 hours ago

Rocket fuel for the taking?

ozgung•37 minutes ago

Sadly we underestimate the liveability of this Earth. Muskism makes people believe to the false premise that we can just buy a new planet, make it habitable with magical tech. Supported with pseudoscientific buzzwords like Terraforming etc. So we can recklessly consume this planet and jump to our new home when this one depletes. No need to care about our current home because it's a jumping board. Interesting as an old Sci-Fi fantasy so it attracts smart people, but if you really think about it's just lies and stupidity.

MengerSponge•about 2 hours ago

Mars is so bad, y'all.

chromacity•about 2 hours ago

Calcium perchlorate is only slightly toxic. Not good for you, but living in an environment with background radiation levels 50x higher than on Earth may be your bigger worry...

Still, I'm pretty sure we have plenty of people who wouldn't mind giving it a try.

LorenPechtel•33 minutes ago

Personally, I suspect all anoxic environments will turn out to be unhealthy for humans. You'll have a bunch of reactive stuff about that on Earth would have been neutralized long ago.

mr_toad•about 1 hour ago

> That will require that humans never come in contact with the regolith or things that touched it.

It’s really only a concern if you ingest it.

darknavi•about 2 hours ago

If this fact piques your interest, the book Delta-v by Daniel Suarez glances off this fact and uses it to justify exploring asteroid mining instead of a colony on Mars.

LorenPechtel•about 1 hour ago

I'm not impressed with his science.

imglorp•about 2 hours ago

Or effective decontamination performed in the airlock. There was a recent demonstration of an electrostatic repulsion device reducing dust on suit fabric which might help with sticking. And an air shower like used for clean rooms does not seem too far out.

nomel•11 minutes ago

Is that required?

Could the suit itself be used as a type of airlock, to leave outside things outside?

For example, mounting yourself onto a wall, then the back/whatever of the suit opens to the inside, and you hop out? (yes, there would be some dust recovery required, but minimal in comparison)

ck2•about 2 hours ago

there's a great PBS Space Time for that (of course)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5FqozA4IpA

snthpy•about 2 hours ago

TIL

ortusdux•about 2 hours ago

This is a big perk of the newer lunar rover design, wherein the suits stay outside the vehicle - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Exploration_Vehicle#Spec...

There has been some great research into laser or solar sintering of regolith, and one of my first questions was if the resulting material is safe for humans.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-42008-1

OsrsNeedsf2P•about 3 hours ago

They describe the dust on the moon as,

> Fine like powder, but sharp like glass

Sounds scary. But totally worth it!

Patrick_Devine•about 2 hours ago

Isn't this why NASA is developing the Electrodynamic Dust Shield [1] system?

[1] https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasas-dust-shield-success...

jjmarr•about 3 hours ago

Have any of them developed cancer from the space asbestos yet?

porphyra•about 2 hours ago

Even with actual asbestos, the risk goes up a lot with duration and intensity of exposure. Probably, the risks of getting cancer from a brief exposure is fairly low, and combined with the ridiculously small sample size of only 12 people to ever set foot on the moon, it's natural that none of them got "moon cancer". That said, with asbesto, it's still possible to get cancer even from brief exposures:

> Although it is clear that the health risks from asbestos exposure increase with heavier exposure and longer exposure time, investigators have found asbestos-related diseases in individuals with only brief exposures. Generally, those who develop asbestos-related diseases show no signs of illness for a long time after exposure. It can take from 10 to 40 years or more for symptoms of an asbestos-related condition to appear. [1]

[1] https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/s...

loloquwowndueo•about 3 hours ago

Only 4 are still alive, all in their 90s so that’d be a long time - even if some do have cancer at this stage it’s not likely to affect life expectancy I guess.

AngryData•about 3 hours ago

We also have to remember that those astronauts were some of the most physically fit individuals in a nation of hundreds of millions which may skew the expected medical outcomes. Especially if we assume they always had the best healthcare available, if from nothing else than doctors asking similiar qiestions about the effects of space travel.

tempaccount5050•14 minutes ago

That's just simply not true at all, I don't know where you're getting this idea. Literally every Olympic athlete was more fit that an any astronaut ever.

themafia•about 2 hours ago

The military does not survey the population and then select the fittest. So, as a function, it cannot actually perform as you say.

It's the same with F1. "We have the best drivers in the world!" You have the best drivers from the self-selection mechanism you impose on the sport. There are zero reasons to think these categories have good overlap.

wat10000•about 2 hours ago

The exposure was brief, too. Wikipedia says mesothelioma has been known to develop from exposures of "only" 1 month. That's a scary short time if it's in your home or workplace, but comfortably longer than an Apollo mission. Could be an issue for a future base, though.

altmanaltman•about 2 hours ago

I mean Neil Armstrong literally smoked and did not "believe" in excercise so they were absolutely not the most physically fittest people. They were just freaks in terms of enduring a lot of stress tests. Physical endurance is just one aspect they train for. Other aspects were much more valued like them being military flight pilots/smart enough to understand the systems/mentally strong enough to not break down etc. You were not selecting for absolute raw fitness for the apollo missions.

HarHarVeryFunny•about 2 hours ago

Part of what makes asbestos (and also fiberglass) dangerous, isn't just the sharpness but also the long shape which means that macrophages can't engulf them.

Moon dust is still problematic since although smaller it also can't be digested by macrophages and it's believed it would accumulate in the lungs, building up on repeated exposure.

LorenPechtel•26 minutes ago

Sounds to me like the threat would be silicosis.

mirekrusin•21 minutes ago

Sounds similar to asbestos.

m463•about 3 hours ago

we have similar problems with volcanic ash on earth

tim-tday•about 2 hours ago

Exactly, but the lack of a water cycle on the moon means that all the dust is sharp and always will be.

It will irritate human mucus membranes whenever it comes in contact. Irritate lungs, eyes, skin.

It degrades rubber seals.

jMyles•about 3 hours ago

I walked up to the flows on Fagradalsfjall when it was erupting a couple of years ago, and I found the cinereous, sulfurous air to be very medicinal and clearing. I'm not sure it'd have good for me for more than a few hours, but as it was, it was great. I occasionally wish I were able to just have a chamber with that air in it.

kzrdude•about 2 hours ago

There are some saunas on Iceland that expose you to earth gasses, might be exactly the kind of chamber you are after. I've visited one, and it was unfortunately cold for a sauna because that's naturally varying too.

hvs•about 2 hours ago

If you want to get depressed about all the problems with trying to colonize Mars, I recommend A City on Mars: https://www.acityonmars.com/

It's by the cartoonist of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and his wife (the one with an actual science PhD). https://www.smbc-comics.com/

tcp_handshaker•about 2 hours ago

"The toxic side of the Moon" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47768039

tillinghast•25 minutes ago

Cue Cave Johnson: “The bean counters told me we literally could not afford to buy seven dollars worth of moon rocks, much less seventy million. Bought 'em anyway. Ground 'em up, mixed em into a gel. And guess what? Ground up moon rocks are pure poison. I am deathly ill.”

lucasaug•about 2 hours ago

When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade

BFV•about 3 hours ago

That’s such a weirdly specific detail but also kinda fascinating. Imagine going to the Moon and the first thing you notice is “huh… smells like gunpowder.

skywhopper•about 2 hours ago

I just had a filling replaced at the dentist yesterday and when he was grinding away at it to shape it, I would get a terrible whiff of something like gunpowder. It was quite disturbing.

But now I can just tell everyone my tooth is filled with moon dust.