Comments on: Lunar Leftovers.

Lunar Leftovers.

gman — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:03:46 -0800

How the Moon Became a Trash Can.

"The biggest trash can outside of earth's atmosphere is in fact the moon."

By: Science!

Science! — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:06:39 -0800

I doubt the amount of junk on the Moon even comes close to the amount of debris and dead satellites orbiting the Earth.

By: Joe Beese

Joe Beese — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:09:55 -0800

The astronauts also chucked out... a sack of garbage and their urine bags. I often think about that garbage and how it will remain preserved in the lunar vacuum long after every trace of human existence on earth is eventually scoured away - the ultimate symbol of what we stood for.

By: Stonestock Relentless

Stonestock Relentless — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:10:07 -0800

It may be trash, but it is awesome trash.

By: Halle

Halle — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:14:39 -0800

Damn, I had no idea how gorgeous the early Soviet spacecraft were.

By: Elmore

Elmore — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:21:14 -0800

One man's urine bag is another man's trash.

By: Elmore

Elmore — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:22:03 -0800

...or treasure

By: Marisa Stole the Precious Thing

Marisa Stole the Precious Thing — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:27:58 -0800

Stuff like this fascinates me. Space is infinite, just chuck those freeze-dried ice cream wrappers. Who cares, right? Yeah, well, when one of those urine bags smacks into the windshield of the wrong intergalactic planet destroyer, maybe then we'll think twice about dumping garbage in space.

By: Lipstick Thespian

Lipstick Thespian — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:28:12 -0800

All of my urine bags are hermetically sealed by date and chemical content in my temperature-controlled unit, right next to the wine. You know, for posterity. And my memoirist.

By: Dr. Twist

Dr. Twist — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:29:10 -0800

they don't mention the seismometers that we left on the moon. which in an amazingly shortsighted move were switched off, permanently, in 1977 due to budget cuts. the deliberate crashing of booster and ascent stages into the moon were to help calibrate the seismometers

By: kuujjuarapik

kuujjuarapik — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:29:44 -0800

*pictures a solitary lunar inhabitant looking upon space trash as a single quicksilver teardrop runs down his craggy moonman cheek.

By: Rhaomi

Rhaomi — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:35:13 -0800

Dr. Twist: "the deliberate crashing of booster and ascent stages into the moon were to help calibrate the seismometers" It was a pretty bold, if crude, idea. For reference, see this NASA photo of the aftermath of the first calibration test.

By: psylosyren

psylosyren — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:36:04 -0800

Let's send the NERDS to the moon to work on the lunar buggies.

By: futureisunwritten

futureisunwritten — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:36:56 -0800

Ah, high tech dunebuggys and bags of pee. Merry Christmas Moon!

By: Artw

Artw — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:37:36 -0800

Any one of the Luna series would be worth a mint as mid-century modern furniture and lighting.

By: ROU_Xenophobe

ROU_Xenophobe — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:40:39 -0800

Of course the significant date in terms of humanity and the moon is July 21 1969. Um.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:40:48 -0800

If you have something in orbit around a body with no atmosphere, what would happen if its orbit decayed? What kind of velocity would it be going when it hit the ground? (In high school, I could have answered this.)

By: JHarris

JHarris — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:41:03 -0800

Oh course the Moon is a trash can. We made it such so all the Grouches would move there.

By: Ron Thanagar

Ron Thanagar — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:43:14 -0800

I wonder if the moon buggy's tires are flat... and can we just put it in first gear and push it to start it?

By: Ron Thanagar

Ron Thanagar — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:47:02 -0800

Of course the significant date in terms of humanity and the moon is July 21 1969. Um. posted by ROU_Xenophobe Well, that's because July 20th, 1969 was a Sunday, and trash pickup is on Mondays and Thursdays in the Sea of Tranquility.

By: steef

steef — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:47:35 -0800

Well, there's yet another argument in favor of manned space exploration: a robot's not going to chuck bags full of urine onto alien landscapes like Mars. We'd have to specifically budget for, design, and test urine bag-chucking robots (not to mention stocking them full of heavy, payload-reducing bags of urine), and launch them into outer space. It'd be cheaper just to send humans. We should not rest until the moons of Jupiter look like the slopes of Everest, littered with our empties and leftovers.

By: Artw

Artw — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:48:35 -0800

I wonder if the moon buggy's tires are flat... They're a sort of wire mesh, no pressurization. /humourless nerd

By: Uppity Pigeon #2

Uppity Pigeon #2 — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:49:47 -0800

Damn, I had no idea how gorgeous the early Soviet spacecraft were. Tell me about it. That thing looks like a Fabergé egg was cross-bred with a Megaman bad guy and strapped to a rocket. ...Actually, that description sort of weirds me out. But still, the rocket looks awesome.

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:57:45 -0800

The LM was named Eagle to match the insignia. Ha! That legendary phrase, "The Eagle has landed," was informed by nothing but a tacky iron-on.

By: P.o.B.

P.o.B. — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:58:29 -0800

When they said it was time to go back home I would have had some fun with the buggy first. Take it and jump some dunes or let it ghost ride down a huge crater.

By: Mister Moofoo

Mister Moofoo — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:58:56 -0800

I remember a story about someone who found a wormhole to the moon in New Jersey and used it to retrieve the moon rover to sell it for scrap. Bad geek that I am, I remember neither the title nor the author. But it was funny.

By: snsranch

snsranch — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:01:02 -0800

Looks like the aliens were all over this stuff before it even left earth. (Smiley aliens?)

By: kuujjuarapik

kuujjuarapik — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:08:20 -0800

We should not rest until the moons of Jupiter look like the slopes of Everest, littered with our empties and leftovers. you forgot corpses.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:13:23 -0800

When we colonize the moon, we'll just mark a portion of it New Pennsylvania and build landfills underneath it. Problem solved.

By: Sova

Sova — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:15:26 -0800

This question has always bothered me: Everytime something made on Earth leaves the atmosphere, doesn't it decrease the total mass of Earth ever so slightly? In the future, are we going to have to constantly weigh our planets just in case imports and exports upset the mass so much that the change in gravity becomes problematic?

By: Artw

Artw — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:15:49 -0800

Great. More Astro Zombies.

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:18:18 -0800

Don't worry, Sova. That problem will be solved soon enough.

By: steef

steef — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:18:40 -0800

you forgot corpses. Way to stall my rally, there, kuujjuarapik. We'll choke their rivers of hydrocarbons with our dead!

By: filthy light thief

filthy light thief — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:23:02 -0800

To put 170,000 kg (approx. 375,000 lb) into scale: one particularly active coconut products exporting company shipped about 170,000 kilos of canned coconut cream a month back in 2003; 170,000 kilos of goat manure will fertilize 47.5 acres of wine grapes for 2 to 3 years; and 170,000 kilos of meat will feed 12,000 families for a year, or at least well enough to deem it a "success story." In short: those moon men can brush their solitary mercury tears aside and start collecting the metals for interstellar junker ships, or get those space artifacts back to Earth and make a mint at auctions, and their crater-pocked home can be pristine again.

By: Edgewise

Edgewise — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:23:10 -0800

Just saying, I don't think a brief quote was worth the "[more inside]" link.

By: filthy light thief

filthy light thief — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:25:36 -0800

Everytime something made on Earth leaves the atmosphere, doesn't it decrease the total mass of Earth ever so slightly? We do "import" space rocks of a variety of forms, and I'd guess we've gained more than we've lost, in simple weight. In the future, are we going to have to constantly weigh our planets just in case imports and exports upset the mass so much that the change in gravity becomes problematic? That's an interesting question, and one I will let the more scientifically-minded (or sci-fi inclined) answer.

By: Jawn

Jawn — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:26:33 -0800

don't be alarmed -- the chances of a catastrophic collision are just one in 909,000 Actually that alarms the hell out of me. That's way better than my chances of winning the lottery and only slightly worse than my chances of being hit by lightning in any given year (although that number varies considerably). And I know at least two people who've been hit by lightning.

By: blenderfish

blenderfish — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:30:11 -0800

By: Sova

Sova — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:44:38 -0800

Don't worry, Sova. That problem will be solved soon enough. Yep. I hear they have a real problem with that on Bethselamin. You know, I'm not liking either of these two solutions...

By: exogenous

exogenous — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:49:03 -0800

Disappointed this wasn't about the moon's gravitation sucking up loads of random space junk.

By: Twang

Twang — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:53:48 -0800

The article sails past the biggest, most-travelled, most steampunk of all the Soviet vehicles, the Lunakhods. With bodies about the size of something you'd cook a whole pig in, they were the original rovers. Lunakhod 2 travelled 23 miles in a few months, bristling with cameras and radios. Astronaut son Richard Garriott bought Lunakhod 2 in 1993 for $68,500 making him the only owner of private property on a foreign body, so to speak.

By: The Bridge on the River Kai Ryssdal

The Bridge on the River Kai Ryssdal — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:54:11 -0800

ROU, I think the author's referring to the UTC date of Armstrong's walk on the surface - a couple of hours after midnight on the 21st. Kind of a meh article, though - there's not really a point to it except to list important lunar landing missions, and I'm not sure if it's just supposed to be that or if R. J. Evans thinks this is actually problematic. And the writing made me cringe from that weird first sentence: "The moon has only been accessible for decades, rather than hundreds of years." The whole thing reads like a ninth grader's awkward essay. Plus, by these standards, isn't Titan the most distant trash can we have?

By: 7segment

7segment — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:24:43 -0800

Everytime something made on Earth leaves the atmosphere, doesn't it decrease the total mass of Earth ever so slightly? In the future, are we going to have to constantly weigh our planets just in case imports and exports upset the mass so much that the change in gravity becomes problematic? Bear in mind that the Earth weighs about 6x10²⁴ kg, so the figure cited of 170,000 kg represents less than a millionth of the amount by which you change the total mass of the human population by breathing. See Earthmoving for more information, part of the inimitable How to destroy the Earth.

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:35:14 -0800

REally, you should put it in second gear to push-start it.

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:43:49 -0800

Were I an astronaut, I'd've brought my keys up there and then 'lost' them. Also: this guy

By: orme

orme — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:52:21 -0800

I showed the article to my local scrapper guy and he's already working on fixing rockets to his shopping cart. This should all be resolved shortly.

By: Uppity Pigeon #2

Uppity Pigeon #2 — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:06:57 -0800

Were I an astronaut, I'd've brought my keys up there and then 'lost' them. That's what happened to my wallet!

By: paisley henosis

paisley henosis — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:36:55 -0800

Wiki, as always, has a page on this.

By: Tube

Tube — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:48:39 -0800

When I read the term "dark side of the moon" in anything besides a Pink Floyd context I flinch just a little, like I do when I get my teeth cleaned.

By: ROU_Xenophobe

ROU_Xenophobe — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:00:04 -0800

ROU, I think the author's referring to the UTC date of Armstrong's walk on the surface - a couple of hours after midnight on the 21st. I actually figured that they meant the day that the ascent module left, leaving the descent stage as garbage. But still, the 21st is not the Big Day.

By: codswallop

codswallop — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:11:09 -0800

Not only are there no cute critters on the moon, there aren't even ugly or dangerous organisms. It's a lifeless rock. Seriously, if we can't pollute there, where can we?

By: rmless

rmless — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:11:17 -0800

The moon, the ocean, what else is awesome and huge that we can turn into a trash can? I vote for the Sahara.

By: digsrus

digsrus — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:15:14 -0800

Who cares, right? Yeah, well, when one of those urine bags smacks into the windshield of the wrong intergalactic planet destroyer, maybe then we'll think twice about dumping garbage in space. Actually, I consider myself a urine bag half full kind of guy and tend to look on the bright (amber) side of things. I imagine that the planet destroyer will be traveling so fast that the urine bag it hits will seem like an atomic bomb. And also watching our backs are the War of the World germs residing in the companions of the urine bags.

By: ROU_Xenophobe

ROU_Xenophobe — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:20:05 -0800

Not only are there no cute critters on the moon You LIE.

By: Miss Otis' Egrets

Miss Otis' Egrets — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:40:50 -0800

Apollo 11 looks so incredibly flimsy. No way I'd even go to the supermarket in that thing, let alone the moon.

By: lukemeister

lukemeister — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:42:23 -0800

I don't know if they're cute, but there are critters on the Moon. As far as the Earth losing mass, if this guy weren't a poseur ...

By: dgaicun

dgaicun — Thu, 14 May 2009 21:04:30 -0800

I wish we could send all of our trash to the moon. Better there than here, where it crowds and poisons plants and animals.

By: DreamerFi

DreamerFi — Thu, 14 May 2009 22:49:54 -0800

Everytime something made on Earth leaves the atmosphere, doesn't it decrease the total mass of Earth ever so slightly? In the future, are we going to have to constantly weigh our planets just in case imports and exports upset the mass so much that the change in gravity becomes problematic? Not to scare you, but you should look up how many tons of meteorite material are added to the weight of the Earth every single day..

By: Cantdosleepy

Cantdosleepy — Fri, 15 May 2009 03:43:14 -0800

There's no life on the moon to endanger with our junk. If we found some alien society's discarded waste on a satellite we'd find it super-fascinating. I have no problem with there being a few thousand tonnes of our most advanced (at the time it is left) debris on the moon. Littering for posterity.

By: birdwatcher

birdwatcher — Fri, 15 May 2009 06:33:55 -0800

The litter on the moon apparently pales in comparison to the litter we've left on Mt. Everest. Humans don't seem able to go anywhere without trashing it.

By: 1f2frfbf

1f2frfbf — Fri, 15 May 2009 06:52:04 -0800

Yeah, but we also left behind some cool art. Make your own joke concerning rubbish and modern art, I haven't had coffee yet.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Fri, 15 May 2009 06:55:06 -0800

Humans don't seem able to go anywhere without trashing it. Deep thoughts: could an outside observer even tell the difference between the trash and the good stuff? Are hotels built in Fiji any better than the litter on Everest?

By: Mastercheddaar

Mastercheddaar — Fri, 15 May 2009 07:15:43 -0800

Just imagine the field day McGyver could have up there.

By: Ynoxas

Ynoxas — Fri, 15 May 2009 09:47:22 -0800

This is interesting, but an absurd thing to worry about. Given the very few visits to the moon, coupled with the complete lack of biologic entities, this is about #1,753 on the list of things to be concerned over. If we do ever start having manned missions to the moon again, the materials can be salvaged then. Given the scale, this is like finding a bottlecap in your backyard. Undesirable? Sure. But hardly a serious concern.

By: Guy_Inamonkeysuit

Guy_Inamonkeysuit — Fri, 15 May 2009 12:37:07 -0800

It's a lifeless rock. Well, you know, that could change.

By: Guy_Inamonkeysuit

Guy_Inamonkeysuit — Fri, 15 May 2009 12:41:39 -0800

...and part II, which really has the kicker.