{"id":108255,"date":"2024-09-29T07:39:55","date_gmt":"2024-09-29T00:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=108255"},"modified":"2024-09-29T07:39:55","modified_gmt":"2024-09-29T00:39:55","slug":"rtl-today-luna-walking-on-the-moon-in-cologne-europes-lunar-life-simulator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=108255","title":{"rendered":"RTL Today &#8211; LUNA: Walking on the Moon in Cologne: Europe&#8217;s lunar life simulator"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>A large, ordinary-looking warehouse in the German city of Cologne is the closest you can get to walking on the Moon &#8212; without leaving Earth.<\/p>\n<p>The facility known as LUNA, which was officially inaugurated on Wednesday, is the world&#8217;s most faithful recreation of the lunar surface, according to the European Space Agency (ESA).<\/p>\n<p>European astronauts will train inside the unique simulator and test equipment that will one day travel to the Moon &#8212; including potentially on NASA&#8217;s upcoming Artemis programme, which plans to send humans there on a mission in a few years.<\/p>\n<p>From the outside, it looks like a huge white hangar in a corner of the German Aerospace Center on the outskirts of Cologne.<\/p>\n<p>But inside the nine-metre (30 feet) high facility, below the ink-black ceiling and walls, is a replica of the soil that covers the lunar surface.<\/p>\n<p>Craters and lumps ripple in and out of darkness under the stark light of a sole lamp at one end of the 700-square-metre area &#8212; the equivalent of more than three tennis courts.<\/p>\n<p>The terrain is strewn with rocks and smothered in a strange pale-grey dust.<\/p>\n<p>ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer described walking through the environment wearing a space suit.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When you&#8217;re entering the black area and you have the sunlight in front of you,&#8221; it can be difficult to find your way around, Maurer told journalists during a recent tour of the facility.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Is this just a shallow pit or is this an abyss?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Difficult dust &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Maurer, a materials scientist, has served as astronaut advisor for LUNA over the last decade.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a unique facility because it integrates so many different elements that nobody else around the globe has, not even NASA,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>For LUNA, the ESA developed and produced 900 tonnes of its own lunar regolith, the thick layer of dust that covers the Moon&#8217;s surface.<\/p>\n<p>To the touch, the simulated Moon dust called EAC-1A is rough as pumice stone &#8212; yet also very fine.<\/p>\n<p>This combination makes it dangerous to breathe, and can cause equipment problems.<\/p>\n<p>When stepped on, the dust rises and &#8220;keeps on floating,&#8221; Maurer said.<\/p>\n<p>Real lunar soil causes even more problems because it is charged with static electricity, which makes it stick to nearby surfaces.<\/p>\n<p>Because of this problem, astronauts on NASA&#8217;s Apollo missions more than 50 years ago feared for the integrity of their spacesuits after just a few lunar walks.<\/p>\n<p>On the Moon, this powdery dust is the result of repeatedly being hit by asteroids.<\/p>\n<p>But the simulated regolith is &#8220;a basaltic volcanic material that is grinded and sieved to our needs and then mixed,&#8221; the ESA&#8217;s LUNA project manager Juergen Schlutz said.<\/p>\n<p>The engineers are still waiting on a delivery of 20 tonnes of regolith from Greenland, which will be used in the &#8220;dust laboratory,&#8221; a hermetically sealed space inside LUNA for testing equipment.<\/p>\n<p>The facility will also soon be home to a roving artificial sun, which will cast changing shadows across the terrain.<\/p>\n<p>An intricate harness system controlled from the top of the facility will allow astronauts to experience the bouncy gravity on the Moon, which has around 17 percent of Earth&#8217;s gravity.<\/p>\n<p>LUNA&#8217;s floor will also be able to be frozen to a depth of three metres.<\/p>\n<p>This will let astronauts practise drilling into the frozen lunar ground in search of water ice, Maurer explained.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; &#8216;Live and work on the Moon&#8217; &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>In one corner, a tilting panel will test how astronauts handle slopes of up to 50 degrees.<\/p>\n<p>This can be tricky, because first steps on the lunar soil can sometimes sink in ankle-deep, making it similar to climbing a sand dune.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And after a hard day of eight hours walking on the Moon, you go into FLEXHab,&#8221; Maurer said.<\/p>\n<p>The Future Lunar Exploration Habitat (FLEXHab), designed to house four astronauts, will be connected to LUNA within a week.<\/p>\n<p>The astronauts will use a watertight airlock to stop lunar soil from getting into their home.<\/p>\n<p>The facility will also be connected to a closed-loop greenhouse called LUNA, which has been shown to be able to grow vegetables during a five-year stint in Antarctica.<\/p>\n<p>Altogether, this ecosystem should make it possible to &#8220;understand how to live and work on the Moon,&#8221; Schlutz said.<\/p>\n<p>It is also hoped to help secure places for European astronauts on NASA&#8217;s Artemis programme, which plans to return humans to the surface of the Moon later this decade.<\/p>\n<p>Maurer, a potential candidate for an Artemis spot, said that &#8220;stepping on the Moon in Cologne&#8221; means that &#8220;one foot is already on the Moon&#8221;.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"didomi\/javascript\" data-vendor=\"didomi:facebook\" async defer crossorigin=\"anonymous\" src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js#xfbml=1&#038;version=v8.0&#038;appId=2052042465043067&#038;autoLogAppEvents=1\" nonce=\"wvIEl0Bh\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1660802\">\r\n<\/div>\r\n<script>(function(w,q){w[q]=w[q]||[];w[q].push([\"_mgc.load\"])})(window,\"_mgq\");\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/today.rtl.lu\/news\/science-and-environment\/a\/2234777.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A large, ordinary-looking warehouse in the German city of Cologne is the closest you can get to walking on the Moon &#8212; without leaving Earth. The facility known as LUNA, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=108255\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8628],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=108255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=108255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=108255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=108255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}