The physicist trying to build humanity’s lunar future with moon dirt

Any astronauts reaching the surface of the moon will be greeted first by a plume of dirt, sent flying by the boosters of their spacecraft. They will emerge and put bootprints in the dirt, take samples and study the dirt, and eventually they may use the dirt to make the fuel and other supplies needed to maintain a long-term lunar presence. When it comes to exploring the moon, it’s all about dirt.

Planetary physicist Philip Metzger at the University of Central Florida is the king of moon dirt, or regolith. In 2013, he cofounded a group of research labs at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida, where research teams spend their days working with artificial lunar regolith, like the sample pictured below, to learn how it behaves and what we will be able to do with it. With NASA’s Artemis programme aiming to put humans back on the surface of the moon in 2027 and eventually set up a permanent base there, that knowledge is becoming increasingly important.

Regolith will be both a danger to astronauts as they land and a crucial resource as they build. Metzger works with scientists at a variety of labs who are figuring out how to protect astronauts and their dwellings from the pointy, perilous dust grains and how to use the dirt to make rocket fuel and radiation shielding.

He spoke to New Scientist about what a permanent human presence on the moon might look like, why regolith is so important to that vision and how understanding this thick…