Our lunar ambitions depend on this fake Moon dirt
by William Poor from The Verge - All Posts on (#66940)
Fun fact from the files of there's a job for that": there are multiple companies that specialize in making fake Moon dirt. Technically, it's called lunar regolith to help differentiate it from soil," which implies the presence of organic material, or from dirt," which, for this story, I learned literally just means anything that makes you dirty." Whatever you call it, it is nothing like our friendly terrestrial soils: it's sharp, dusty, and jagged; it's full of glassy globs from meteorite impacts; and its chemical composition has been altered by constant bombardment from solar wind. In short, lunar regolith is strange and alien stuff.
So why would multiple companies go out of their way to simulate it? Because as more governments and...