THE MOONDUST DIARIES

As returning to the moon becomes a priority for national space agencies and private corporations, one question has yet to be answered: what to do about the sticky, gritty—and possibly dangerous—dust? The recently rediscovered work of an Australian scientist may provide some answers

- Ceridwen Dovey

In the public imagination, the American astronauts who landed on the moon five decades ago were superhumans, not the types to worry about housekeeping. But they did, obsessively. Each time after a moonwalk, they were shocked at how much dust they’d tracked in and how hard it was to banish.

This was no earthly grime; it was sticky and abrasive, scratching helmet visors, weakening seals on pressure suits, irritating eyes, and causing sinus trouble. “It inhabits every nook and cranny in the spacecraft and every pore in your skin,” Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan said.

Over the six moon landings, the Dusty Dozen fought valiantly with their foe. They stomped boots outside, then cinched bin bags around their legs to stop the dust from spreading. They attacked it with wet rags, bristle brushes and a vacuum cleaner. Cernan, returning from his last moonwalk, vowed, “I ain’t going to do much more dusting after I leave here.” Years after John Young commanded Apollo 16, he still believed “dust is the number one concern in returning to the moon”.

Now, with national space agencies and private corporations poised to do just that, the Apollo dust diaries are relevant once more. In January last year, China landed its Chang’e-4 probe on the far side of the moon. Two months later, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency said it was partnering with Toyota to design a six-wheeled moon rover by 2029. Around the same time, US Vice President Mike Pence announced plans to put American boots back on the moon by 2024. NASA's goal is “to go sustainably. To stay. With landers and robots and rovers—and humans.”