References

Here is a list of ref­er­ences that I’ve made use of dur­ing the process of writ­ing these stories.

The Effects of Lunar Dust on EVA Sys­tems Dur­ing the Apol­lo Mis­sion’s

This report is a sum­ma­ry of the effects of Lunar dust dur­ing the Apol­lo mis­sions.  It details some of the affects of the dust on the astro­nauts and their equip­ment.  It describes the dif­fi­cul­ties encoun­tered with the dust con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the inte­ri­ors of the space vehi­cles.  The dust is very abra­sive and also is slip­pery.  As new rovers land on the Moon, we can expect this infor­ma­tion to be sup­ple­ment­ed with more mod­ern studies.

Apol­lo 11: ‘A Stark Beau­ty All Its Own’

The lunar recon­nais­sance orbiter (LRO) has imaged the Apol­lo 11 land­ing site near­ly 50 years after­wards.  One clear thing from the image is the trails left by the walk­ing astro­nauts.  Images like this reveal the time­less­ness of the lunar envi­ron­ment.  A track left will remain.

 

LCROSS Impact Data Indi­cates Water on Moon

In 2009 the LCROSS impact­ed on the lunar sur­face.  The result­ing plume pro­vid­ed evi­dence that water ice, along with oth­er volatiles exist­ed in the bot­tom of one per­ma­nent­ly shad­owed crater locat­ed near the lunar south pole.  This arti­cle describes the ear­li­est results from the mission.

The dinosaur-killing aster­oid impact rad­i­cal­ly altered Earth’s trop­i­cal forests

Arti­cle from Sci­ence News that details study com­par­ing the trop­i­cal forests before and after the end of the Cre­ta­ceous Era.  The key find­ing is that the ferns and conifers suf­fered more than the leafy trees.  The bio­di­ver­si­ty of the forests went down (along with that of the rest of the world) because of the 75% kill off of all species.  In the case of the forests, that change led to the dark dense for­est we think of today.

ISRU

In Situ Resource Uti­liza­tion.  This is liv­ing off the land, an activ­i­ty that human­i­ty has been doing for mil­len­nia. This page details NASA’s activ­i­ties for liv­ing off the land in the lunar envi­ron­ment.  The goals are asso­ci­at­ed with lunar water from the polar craters.  Among oth­er things, the water can be turned into rock­et fuel.

Impacts of Human Civ­i­liza­tion on Mars Geology

 

This Span­ish lan­guage arti­cle from EOS.  The impacts of the stages of human col­o­niza­tion on the geol­o­gy of Mars is discussed.

Atom­ic Rockets

This is the first stop for almost any­thing relat­ed to space­flight.  It helps estab­lish the pos­si­ble and sifts out the impos­si­ble and the down­right sil­ly.  I am a patron for this site. Nyrath has done an amaz­ing job and con­tin­u­ous­ly adds new con­tent.  The side notes from Rock­et Cat are down­right hilarious.

NASA Apol­lo 14 Web Page

 

This Mis­sion is the third Lunar Land­ing of the Apol­lo Pro­gram.  The land­ing site is the Fra Mau­ro high­lands region on the east­ern edge of the Ocean of Storms.