Dust often thought of as an impediment to lunar
explooration could be put to good use to build
giant telescopes on the Moon perhaps some large
enough to fill entire craters, says a teaam of US researchers.
The team, led by Peter Chen of NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, US,
has devised a simple method to create a
concrete-like substance using a mixture of carbon
nanotubes, epoxy and a crushed rock material that
NASA uses as a stand-in for Moon dust.
Using the mixture, they built a 30-centimetre
disc. Then they added more liquid epoxy to its
surface and spun it, coating it with aluminium in
a vacuum. They believe the process could be
scaled up to produce 20- to 50-metre-wide telescopes on the Moon.
<http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn14066-giant-telescopes-could-be-built-from-moon-dust.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=news4_head_dn14066>Link
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Posted By johannes to
<http://www.monochrom.at/english/2008/06/giant-telescopes-could-be-built-from.htm>monochrom
at 6/05/2008 11:42:00 AM
