#Apollo Simulation Center

[apollosimulationcenter]

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[lonestarflight]

"Astronaut Fred W. Haise Jr., Apollo 13 lunar module pilot, participates in simulation training in preparation for the scheduled lunar landing mission. He is in the Apollo Lunar Module Mission Simulator in the Kennedy Space Center's Flight Crew Training building."

Date: April 4, 1970

NASA ID: S70-34412

[moonwatchuniverse]

1969, February 14… Apollo 9 press briefing At the Kennedy Space Center – Florida, Apollo 9 LMP Russell “Rusty” Schweickart briefed the press about the spacesuit for his upcoming spacewalk. For the very first time, Apollo 9 tested both the North American Aviation Command Module and the Grumman Lunar Module in Low Earth Orbit. Schweickart’s spacewalk would demonstrate an emergency transfer between both spacecraft. It was the last spacewalk before the Apollo 11 lunar-EVA in July 1969. Due to a construction delay at Grumman, the original Apollo 8 & 9 missions were swapped. By December 1968, Rusty Schweickart had completed vacuum testing the space suit portable life support chest- and backpack hardware in the altitude chamber of the Space Environment Simulation Laboratory at MSC Houston Texas. Note on the white Velcro strap the battered NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster 105.012 chronograph which was missing the lower push button. We know that some of the NASA-issued Speedmaster chronographs were solely used in astronaut training, n° 24 being the best-knwon example! (Photos: NASA)

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

NASA's Glenn to test lunar air quality monitors aboard space station

As NASA prepares to return to the moon, studying astronaut health and safety is a top priority. Scientists monitor and analyze every part of the International Space Station crew's daily life—down to the air they breathe. These studies are helping NASA prepare for long-term human exploration of the moon and, eventually, Mars.

As part of this effort, NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland is sending three air quality monitors to the space station to test them for potential future use on the moon. The monitors are slated to launch on Monday, April 21, aboard the 32nd SpaceX commercial resupply services mission for NASA.

Like our homes here on Earth, the space station gets dusty from skin flakes, clothing fibers, and personal care products like deodorant. Because the station operates in microgravity, particles do not have an opportunity to settle and instead remain floating in the air. Filters aboard the orbiting laboratory collect these particles to ensure the air remains safe and breathable.

Astronauts will face another air quality risk when they work and live on the moon—lunar dust.

"From Apollo, we know lunar dust can cause irritation when breathed into the lungs," said Claire Fortenberry, principal investigator, Exploration Aerosol Monitors project, NASA Glenn. "Earth has weather to naturally smooth dust particles down, but there is no atmosphere on the moon, so lunar dust particles are sharper and craggier than Earth dust. Lunar dust could potentially impact crew health and damage hardware."

Future space stations and lunar habitats will need monitors capable of measuring lunar dust to ensure air filtration systems are functioning properly. Fortenberry and her team selected commercially available monitors for flight and ground demonstration to evaluate their performance in a spacecraft environment, with the goal of providing a dust monitor for future exploration systems.

Glenn is sending three commercial monitors to the space station to test onboard air quality for seven months. All three monitors are small: no bigger than a shoe box. Each one measures a specific property that provides a snapshot of the air quality aboard the station. Researchers will analyze the monitors based on weight, functionality, and ability to accurately measure and identify small concentrations of particles in the air.

The research team will receive data from the space station every two weeks. While those monitors are orbiting Earth, Fortenberry will have three matching monitors at Glenn. Engineers will compare functionality and results from the monitors used in space to those on the ground to verify they are working as expected in microgravity. Additional ground testing will involve dust simulants and smoke.

Air quality monitors like the ones NASA is testing also have Earth-based applications. The monitors are used to investigate smoke plumes from wildfires, haze from urban pollution, indoor pollution from activities like cooking and cleaning, and how virus-containing droplets spread within an enclosed space.

Results from the investigation will help NASA evaluate which monitors could accompany astronauts to the moon and eventually Mars. NASA will allow the manufacturers to review results and ensure the monitors work as efficiently and effectively as possible. Testing aboard the space station could help companies investigate pollution problems here on Earth and pave the way for future missions to the Red Planet.

"Going to the moon gives us a chance to monitor for planetary dust and the lunar environment," Fortenberry said. "We can then apply what we learn from lunar exploration to predict how humans can safely explore Mars."

NASA commercial resupply missions to the International Space Station deliver scientific investigations in the areas of biology and biotechnology, Earth and space science, physical sciences, and technology development and demonstrations. Cargo resupply from U.S. companies ensures a national capability to deliver scientific research to the space station, significantly increasing NASA's ability to conduct new investigations aboard humanity's laboratory in space.

IMAGE: NASA researchers are sending three air quality monitors to the International Space Station to test them for potential future use on the moon. Credit: NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna

[thedemigodsguide]

Hey Kally, daughter of Aphrodite here. This might be a little morbid, but has anyone ever fallen in the lava from the climbing wall? Because the thought pops in my head every time I pass it.

Hey!

Sorry for the late reply, but I went to the Hephaestus kids for help answering this!

"Has anyone fallen in the lava?"🤔

Not that I can recall.

See, the whole point of Camp Half-Blood is that we are able to put ourselves in situations that simulate the kinds of danger we will likely encounter in the outside world.

Yes, people will get burns, but we have some safety measures in place.

Here's how the wall works. There are some pumps at the top of the wall that release the lava as an obstacle. In order to maintain that, though, some things need to be going on behind the scenes. Lava is constantly losing heat, which is what allows it to turn into pumice. To keep it from turning into rock, it needs to maintain a temperature minimum of about 1,300ºF or about 700ºC.

Therefore, we have some mechanisms in place to do so. We have pits at the bottom that collect the lava. There are openings at the very bottom of those that feed into tubes that travel up the center of the wall. While it is in those tubes, a mix of Hephaestus kid engineering and Hecate kid magic heats the lava back up so that it doesn't solidify. Then it gets spit back out at the top to complete the cycle again.

Normally, the spot campers would most likely fall into would be the pools at the bottom. However, we have celestial bronze catch nets for the campers well above the highest lava-line.

Basically, people can get burned while climbing, but no one will fall in. We also have at least one Apollo kid on duty at the rock wall at all times and it is strictly forbidden to climb when there isn't.

Hope that answered your question and put your mind at ease!

–Kally

[retphienix]

Due to my immense inactivity on the blog this is actually the first time I've really gotten to enjoy the expanded pic limit on posts ^^

No more 10 limits! Woo!

Anyways, this is REALLY cool to me.

I figured out it was a simulation pretty early on, but I had no idea on what was bothering the Atlas or what the significance of 16 was.

This reveal kicks ass in my opinion.

Backing up a moment, the existential stuff was adequate- usually I really latch onto those discussions but with the complete lack of mystery around my existence (I'm a computer simulation) my attitude instead shifts towards what makes free will matter in which case I'm left to just go "Call me fake all you want, I believe I'm real and so I am, end of discussion" but then Atlas keeps talking 🙄 lol

I did enjoy getting "reviewed" or whatever you'd like to call it.

I'm curious what other verdicts Atlas might have? If any.

Because I could easily see this answer being the only one- but it would appear there are what? 6~ possible answers?

I never really considered there to be much of a decision with Apollo- the dialogue there felt a lot more like "Say yes, or say no (yes)" but I guess I was wrong and I did have decisions to make there, hmm.

Regardless, I wonder what alternatives exist- but I rather like where mine landed.

I respect knowledge. I interfere. I am capable of catastrophes and miracles- or however they put it since I'm not scrolling up. I like that.

But screw all that! 16!!!

I AM STOKED over how 16 was explained here.

The one 'big' mystery in my eyes, beyond like, "What's the ending? What's the center do really?" was 16- because unlike those other questons- I had NO idea what 16 would refer to.

I have guesses- solid guesses- on the answers to the other questions!

I saw 16 and went "I have no idea what this means."

In retrospect, it was There. I could have inferred- but I simply did not!

And this reveal is SICK under those conditions- I had no idea what it meant and now it's granted me the SICKEST time limit possible- one in which I Can't Know How Long It Really Is since time works differently for me!

Maybe one of the cooler ways to do an infinite "Time limit" plot lol

Anyways I dug this.

[godsopenwound]

god.........im currently crying over The Moody Blues theme album 'To Our Children's Children's Children'...........the album was inspired by the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing.....some of the things the band members said were “To me, we were creating a rocket for every person who wants to go to the moon but couldn't, and would get to do so with the earphones on or the stereo turned up, lying on their backs on the carpet.” and “The spoken word introduction (of the first song in the album) is set to a musical simulation of the sound of the Saturn V rocket blasting off.” and “The idea is to give you the impression that you are going up into orbit, leaving the [booster] behind, as we've all seen film of the third stage separating and falling back to earth.” and “So if you want to play, stay right back on Earth, waiting for rebirth” these lyrics are intended as a wake up call. One can either wake up and stay centered, or give your attention to worldly distractions. He laments that the latter has prevailed: "It's come to represent the drudgery of the mediocrity in life of our civilization. All of this [technological] greatness has only resulted in the sense of the mundane that prevails.” and “...being from a lost world. A beautiful, lonely world. Probably I made it much more obscure than it needed to be, but it still moves me, and I'm not sure that I can explain why. I feel every single word of it, it invokes images within me that I find particularly moving. It does have a spiritual dimension to it, a religious-almost dimension to it.” and “the first moments of experiencing space after liftoff completes. It considers the wonderment that space travel provides, and what the experience of seeing planets and Earth from a new perspective would be like.” and “I really thought if you were out there what would you expect, what would you see if you were on the spaceship going out. And I suddenly realized if you went up there with all preconceived ideas and preprogrammed ideas in your mind you'd probably miss everything. And I realized then, that's how a child works. […] When you look at life through the eyes of a child there is a wonderment, isn't it? Children see the world differently. There are wonders every day: When you see a butterfly flying or when you see a bird flying or when you see anything, it's just a wonderful world for children to see. I thought, as we become older, we become prejudiced and if you can rid of whatever your prejudice is, you just see the world in naivety, without any restriction. It's wonderful for everyone to be able to see everything in life without any prejudice.” ............................it conveys the experience of observing the gas giants while traveling past and the low-gravity stroll on the moon and the fascination with space and looking up into the night sky and explores the emotion of space travel, and coming to terms with the isolation and loss of personal connection that a long voyage alone would present and loneliness while advocating compassion and the passage of time...................

[eastcoastboyos]

Awestruck

Assembing in the kitchen of our airBnB, the boyos scarfed down leftovers and cereal. Blake tackled last night's taco meat like a champ despite waking up with the snifffles. The disease has spread.

Zipping over to Kennedy Space Center, the boys hustled to the bus tour line having learned the night before that it is a must do according to Reddt. The tour takes you around the massive shuttle assembly building via roads lined with canals (where I saw my first gator!) and deposits you at the Saturn V rocket building.

Not really knowing what the Saturn V was, the boys and I went through an introductionary video and mock control room, which simulated the first launch of USA into space. Absolutely incredible. The windows chattering with the rocket launch, the lights flickering on the actual control panels as operator voices echoed simultaneously, you really did feel like you were there in the launch room on such of a historic moment.

Exiting this room with a horde of blind folk, the boys were gob smacked, rounding a corner and coming right up to the massive rear engine boosters of an actual Saturn V rocket above our heads. Jaws dropped as we marveled at the scale and complexity of the machine.

Exploring the area, we encountered another phenomenal theater simulating the moon landing and marveled at the moon rocks, space suits, and lunar buggys around us. Blake and I joked about the Apollo 11 error code 1202 with our own error codes: 8008 for boob and 9009 for making a poop.

Finishing our exploration of Saturn V, the boys bussed back to the main compound and headed into the Atlantis Space Shuttle Building. Representing the next phase of NASA spacecraft, we were treated to another informative video on the origin of the vessel and an appreciation for the decade of engineering to design the shuttle. To our awe once again, after the imerisve shuttle launch video finished, the video screens rolled up to reveal the actual Atlantis space shuttle behind. 🤯

If our brain chunks weren't already sxattered enough, beside the large space shuttle Atlantis was a small glass box containing the actual wood and paper concept model for the shuttle built ten years prior of the first shuttle launch. Having this massive machine and simple model side by side was such an incredible symbol of engineering design to creation. We all agreed how inspirational everything was.

Goofing around, the boys played with space toilets, I reviewed some employment contract details, and we discussed favourite roller coasters while in line for the cockpit launch simulator, another winner. Some somber moments were had looking at the Challenger and Discovery debris and Joel remarked how KSC had you like "Shittttttt" and then the next moment, a quiet and reflective "shit....".

Taking a quiet snooze in the car, some of the boys recuperated as we made the final stretch to Miami Beach: 2200km in total. Discussing the long term debt cycle, toll road uncertainty, the abundance palm trees and canals, and the worst traffic and drivers we've seen thus far, the boys made it to Miami as the sun was setting. Dylan remarked at the endless lawyer billbords such as "I heart my attorney, 300k" and noted: " Half this country's entire economy is lawyers sueing everone".

Our airBnB is in a cool Latin area, and after obtaining some missing sheets, the boys downed some Corona's, slapped each of with tortillas, placed Georgie on the mantel, and head out on the town. Miami Beach is saturated with art Deco and our heads swiveled as we looked at them lit up in the night with color. Miami Beach is bumping.

Sports cars, fancy outfits, mango strip clubs, gangs on ATVs and motor bikes, the place's energy seem to match New York. Things seem full circle. After resting on the grass for a moment to process everything, (#fiveIntroverts) the boys grabbed margaritas and nachos at Oh Mexico. Letting the night fall late to the sound sof Latin musc, we savored reminiscing about the trip while periodically singing Happy birthday in Spanish.

We miss you Ben.

Derek

[coolsomejet]

The plot of the movie

PBS is purposefully withholding major information about Space Camp, as they did not feature any footage of the movie aside from a brief clip of the show’s intro in their “Summer of Adventure” promo. I’ve been told it is because they want to surprise us. The most they have told us is “Jet and his friends take their skills to Space Camp and go on an intergalactic adventure” and that it is timed to the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969 - it comes out July 20.

A “space camp” is a six day program where kids train to become astronauts. There, you do things such as wear a spacesuit, engage in STEM-related activities, and sleep overnight. The US Space and Rocket Center in Alabama has a Space Camp program, but there is also one in Florida.

After the title of the movie was revealed, I thought it would just be about Jet, Sean, Sydney, and Mindy going to the camp and going in those simulators and all that, without actually going to space. In other words, the movie would be entirely on Earth. But since the synopsis involves an “intergalactic adventure,” that means they ARE going to space.

Upon closer inspection, I have a theory that the movie will be a whole-plot reference to the 1986 movie, SpaceCamp. The movie is about five kids attending a space camp, who accidentally get shot into space. They must work together to return home. The movie got bad reviews and performed poorly at the box office, but it inspired many people to become astronauts, so there’s that.

The premise of a space camp, combined with the intergalactic adventure, makes the parallels with the 1986 film obvious. It helps that Craig Bartlett’s other PBS Kids movie, Adventure Island, was a thinly-veiled reference to Jurassic Park.

Ready Jet Go! is no stranger to movie parodies; “My Fair Jet” is a reference to My Fair Lady and “Endless Summer” has the same basic premise as the 1966 documentary, The Endless Summer.

If my theory is correct, the movie will be a hoot, to quote Jet in the episode “Zerk Visits Earth.”

[xtruss]

Artemis II's Victor Glover Talks About Inspiring Black Future Astronauts

The Mission will be the First Flight to the Moon with Humans Since the 1970s.

— By ABC News | February 23, 2024

ABC News' Linsey Davis spoke with NASA Astronaut Victor Glover about the historic Artemis II mission and how his example will help inspire others who look like him to follow in his footsteps.

NASA astronaut Victor Glover is in full preparation for one of the most anticipated space missions in decades.

And he's hoping the Artemis II mission, which is slated for next year, will inspire people on the planet to come together and follow their dreams of reaching the stars.

Glover will be piloting the four-person manned mission that will be the first flight to the moon with humans on board in more than 50 years. He’ll be joined by Commander Reid Wiseman, mission specialist Christina Koch from NASA, and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency.

Glover also will be the first person of color to go beyond low earth orbit.

"People are excited that we're doing this again. And so for a woman to be on the crew and for a Black astronaut to be on the crew, because that's what our office looks like, to me it is important,” Glover told ABC News' Linsey Davis.

NASA Astronaut Victor Glover will be making his second flight to space as the pilot f the Artemis II mission. NASA

“I think people need to be able to see themselves in the things that they dream about and not just have to try to color it in in their mind’s eye," he added.

Glover spoke more about his role, ongoing preparation and career with Davis.

ABC NEWS LIVE: What are you doing right now to prepare?

GLOVER: The three basic things that we're doing are training.

We'll do simulators to do things normally and then contingency in emergency scenarios and just kind of building the larger team.

Training is one piece. Testing is another. Our vehicle, this will be the first time humans have flown this spacecraft.

And the last thing is engaging with the public and letting them know that we're trying really hard to be good stewards of your things, of your time and your resources and celebrating the wins.

A full moon was visible behind the Artemis I SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft at Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 14, 2022. The first in an increasingly complex series of missions, Artemis I tested SLS and Orion as an integrated system prior to crewed flights to the Moon. NASA

ABC NEWS LIVE: What made you decide you wanted to be a pilot?

GLOVER: I was in college studying engineering, [and] one of my mentors came to work…wearing his Navy uniform. That opened up something that I never considered. I never saw myself, but because he looked like me, he was one of the few Black faculty members at Cal Poly, Dr. Wallace. Just seeing him in his uniform, changed that for me. And so I joined the Navy about two years later.

ABC NEWS LIVE: Tell me about the 1970 poem, by Gil Scott-Heron, "Whitey on the Moon."

GLOVER: I try to listen to it every Monday as I'm driving in to work. It's a good perspective.

As an ambassador of human spaceflight, I think it's important to understand the people that you're an ambassador to. We have to all work hard to understand America, not just the slice of America that we come from. And that poem, to me, represents a perspective that is not often shared when you hear people talk about Apollo.

You hear people say that Apollo saved the '60s, [and] Apollo 8 saved 1968, and there's a lot of truth in that. But there were a lot of people who weren't cheering.

They were protesting the Vietnam War, and wages, and the price of housing and the challenges to get an education.

NASA Astronaut Victor J. Glover, Jr. NASA

And so knowing that that was the America then, we have a duty to know what's America now in its fullness and its breath, so that we can be good stewards of the public's time and resources.

The things that are going on around the country in the wake of George Floyd's murder and Ahmaud Arbery's murder, the nation, the racial protests and the cities that were really struggling with getting those things under control after that, it's just indicative of people being in a place where they may not feel heard and they may not feel like they're being represented.

ABC NEWS LIVE: Many Black people on this planet are ailing, and meanwhile, the investment is going elsewhere.

GLOVER: Yes.

ABC NEWS LIVE: Do you feel that there's still a division, perhaps within the races, as far as going to space and how taxpayer money could be used more wisely, potentially from some critics?

GLOVER: You can't always analyze things at a state and national level. Sometimes you have to go into a community to understand it, to be able to truly empathize.

But sometimes it's just important to listen when people say, “Hey, I've got potholes in my neighborhood and I still have to go to the city to get clean drinking water.”

Marvin Gaye had a song as well, Make Me Wanna Holler, that talks about rocket ships and the cost of rocket ships versus what I have seen out my window.

The investment we make in NASA, between 300 and 700% return on every dollar we spend, creates $3 to $7 of economic and academic activity.

There are a lot of people that think that that poem is anti NASA. And I go, "Well, it's probably still important that we understand why it was written." It makes us better ambassadors of aeronautics in space.

There's no political, economic, [or] demographic division. It's something that I think most people can, can universally latch on to and just go, that's amazing.

The Artemis II crew is shown inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in front of their Orion crew module on Aug. 8, 2023. From left are: Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist; Victor Glover, pilot; Reid Wiseman, commander; and Christina Hammock Koch, mission specialist. NASA

Glover’s NASA colleagues agreed.

NASA ASTRONAUT JESSICA WATKINS: I think that is what unites us and makes human spaceflight a worthwhile endeavor. To have this single singular focus, that we can all get around and put all of our resources and expertise together towards to meet this challenge and explore together.

CHRISTINA KOCH: The thing about records [is] it's not about any one individual's success or contribution even... it's about the fact that it marks a milestone... a state of where we are at and where we are choosing to go.

ABC NEWS LIVE: What's the most awe-inspiring aspect of space?

GLOVER: Wow. To me, it is the way people react to it… the astronauts inside the spaceship and the people outside.

It's a really powerful thing to see human beings leave the planet

I'm wearing an American flag, but when I leave the planet, I represent Earth, you represent humanity, and I really take that seriously. We all have a duty to represent humanity.

[apollosimulationcenter]

Surgery Simulation Training Courses and Classes in India

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[lonestarflight]

Skylab 2 astronauts during EVA training in the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama. This training with Skylab mock-up was to prepare for the repairs needed to get the damage Skylab operational and habitual. In the first photo, weitz probes undeployed solar array on the Skylab mock-up. In the second and third photos, tech and divers work in NBS with a twin-pole solar shield one type contemplated. The 2 poles were 53 ft long.

Date: May 22, 1973

NASA ID: 108-KSC-73P-324, NASA-0-40526, NASA-0-40523

[moonwatchuniverse]

50 years ago: September 1973, Skylab-4 Speedmaster Mk II Skylab-4 Scientist Astronaut Edward Gibson makes notations at the work station simulator of the Apollo Telescope Mount at JSC - Johnson Space Center, Houston. SL-4 was launched in November 1973, with besides their NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster , Gerald Carr wearing a Movado Datachron HS360 automatic chronograph, William Pogue wearing a Seiko 6139-6005 automatic chronograph and Edward Gibson wearing a second Speedmaster. Whether the latter was a Speedmaster Mark II remains hard to tell as no onboard photos were found but Gibson wore his Omega Speedmaster Mark II during complete Skylab training and immediately post-landing in February 1974 ! (Photos: NASA)

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

NASA experiment shows solar wind might make water on the moon

Scientists have hypothesized since the 1960s that the sun is a source of ingredients that form water on the moon. When a stream of charged particles known as the solar wind smashes into the lunar surface, the idea goes, it triggers a chemical reaction that could make water molecules.

Now, in the most realistic lab simulation of this process yet, NASA-led researchers have confirmed this prediction.

The finding, researchers wrote in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, has implications for NASA's Artemis astronaut operations at the moon's South Pole. A critical resource for exploration, much of the water on the moon is thought to be frozen in permanently shadowed regions at the poles.

"The exciting thing here is that with only lunar soil and a basic ingredient from the sun, which is always spitting out hydrogen, there's a possibility of creating water," Li Hsia Yeo, a research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "That's incredible to think about," said Yeo, who led the study.

Solar wind flows constantly from the sun. It's made largely of protons, which are nuclei of hydrogen atoms that have lost their electrons. Traveling at more than 1 million miles per hour, the solar wind bathes the entire solar system. We see evidence of it on Earth when it lights up our sky in auroral light shows.

Most of the solar particles don't reach the surface of Earth because our planet has a magnetic shield and an atmosphere to deflect them. But the moon has no such protection. As computer models and lab experiments have shown, when protons smash into the moon's surface, which is made of a dusty and rocky material called regolith, they collide with electrons and recombine to form hydrogen atoms.

Then, the hydrogen atoms can migrate through the lunar surface and bond with the abundant oxygen atoms already present in minerals like silica to form hydroxyl (OH) molecules, a component of water, and water (H2O) molecules themselves.

Scientists have found evidence of both hydroxyl and water molecules in the moon's upper surface, just a few millimeters deep. These molecules leave behind a kind of chemical fingerprint—a noticeable dip in a wavy line on a graph that shows how light interacts with the regolith. With the current tools available, though, it is difficult to tell the difference between hydroxyl and water, so scientists use the term "water" to refer to either one or a mix of both molecules.

Many researchers think the solar wind is the main reason the molecules are there, though other sources like micrometeorite impacts could also help by creating heat and triggering chemical reactions.

Spacecraft measurements had already hinted that the solar wind is the primary driver of water, or its components, at the lunar surface. One key clue, confirmed by Yeo's team's experiment: the moon's water-related spectral signal changes over the course of the day.

In some regions, it's stronger in the cooler morning and fades as the surface heats up, likely because water and hydrogen molecules move around or escape to space. As the surface cools again at night, the signal peaks again. This daily cycle points to an active source—most likely the solar wind—replenishing tiny amounts of water on the moon each day.

To test whether this is true, Yeo and her colleague, Jason McLain, a research scientist at NASA Goddard, built a custom apparatus to examine Apollo lunar samples. In a first, the apparatus held all experiment components inside: a solar particle beam device, an airless chamber that simulated the moon's environment, and a molecule detector. Their invention allowed the researchers to avoid ever taking the sample out of the chamber—as other experiments did—and exposing it to contamination from the water in the air.

"It took a long time and many iterations to design the apparatus components and get them all to fit inside," said McLain, "but it was worth it, because once we eliminated all possible sources of contamination, we learned that this decades-old idea about the solar wind turns out to be true."

Using dust from two different samples picked up on the moon by NASA's Apollo 17 astronauts in 1972, Yeo and her colleagues first baked the samples to remove any possible water they could have picked up between airtight storage in NASA's space-sample curation facility at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and Goddard's lab. Then, they used a tiny particle accelerator to bombard the dust with mock solar wind for several days—the equivalent of 80,000 years on the moon, based on the high dose of the particles used.

They used a detector called a spectrometer to measure how much light the dust molecules reflected, which showed how the samples' chemical makeup changed over time.

In the end, the team saw a drop in the light signal that bounced to their detector precisely at the point in the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum—near 3 microns—where water typically absorbs energy, leaving a telltale signature.

While they can't conclusively say if their experiment made water molecules, the researchers reported in their study that the shape and width of the dip in the wavy line on their graph suggests that both hydroxyl and water were produced in the lunar samples.

IMAGE: The experimental apparatus consists of a custom-built vacuum chamber that fits inside the sample compartment of a Nicolet iS50 FTIR spectrometer. Credit: Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets (2025). DOI: 10.1029/2024JE008334

[advancetreepros]

Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex: A Journey Into Space Exploration

Located on Merritt Island, Florida, just an hour’s drive from Orlando, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is one of the most inspiring and educational destinations in the United States. This iconic attraction offers visitors a chance to get up close with NASA’s space missions, legendary astronauts, and real spacecraft.

Explore Space History Up Close

At the complex, you can walk beneath the massive Saturn V rocket, the same type that sent astronauts to the moon, and witness the awe-inspiring Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit, where a real shuttle is suspended as if in orbit. The center also offers interactive exhibits, astronaut encounters, and the thrilling Shuttle Launch Experience ride, simulating a rocket launch into space.

Key Attractions and Experiences

Visitors can explore the Rocket Garden, showcasing historic rockets from different NASA programs, or take a bus tour to restricted areas like the Vehicle Assembly Building and Launch Complex 39, where many Apollo and Space Shuttle missions began. For younger guests, there are interactive activities and educational programs that spark curiosity about science and space exploration.

A Must-Visit Destination for All Ages

Whether you're a space enthusiast or simply looking for a memorable experience, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex offers a unique blend of history, technology, and inspiration for all ages.

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[sonsofadam]

"Astronaut Fred W. Haise Jr., Apollo 13 lunar module pilot, participates in simulation training in preparation for the scheduled lunar landing mission. He is in the Apollo Lunar Module Mission Simulator in the Kennedy Space Center's Flight Crew Training building."

Date: April 4, 1970

NASA ID: S70-34412