Thursday, April 16, 2009

Moon technology

''The flight computer onboard the Lunar Excursion Module, which landed on the Moon during the Apollo program, had a whopping 4 kilobytes of RAM and a 74 KB "hard drive." In places, the craft's outer skin was as thin as two sheets of aluminum foil.
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A six-legged, spider-like robot called ATHLETE (short for All-Terrain Hex-Limbed Extra-Terrestrial Explorer) will handle the heavy lifting.
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...those spacesuits will be able to handle much longer exposure to abrasive lunar dust than Apollo suits could. "Those Apollo suits were practically trash by the time the three days were up," Peri says. "These new suits will have to last in that harsh environment for months or years."
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While the hardware required for living on the Moon for months is very different from that needed by the Apollo program, it's very similar to the hardware needed to live someplace else: Mars.
'' [source]

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