How To Make Fake Mars Dust
It amuses me to no end that not only has NASA figured out how to create fake Mars dust (aka: dust on Earth that has the same consistency and texture as the stuff on Mars), but that they actually have a legitimate need to do so:
But now Spirit faces a new and tricky challenge—its wheels have partly sunk into a patch of soft soil. The rover’s controllers have put a halt to driving operations while they try to figure out how to get it unstuck.
“Spirit is in a very difficult situation,” John Callas, project manager for the rovers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement yesterday. “We are proceeding methodically and cautiously. It may be weeks before we try moving Spirit again.” A JPL spokesperson said today that the rover’s condition had not changed.
Incidentally, the recipe via MarsRovers:
Recipe for rover sandbox testing (to duplicate Spirit’s sandtrap): 1part Diatomaceous Earth + 1part Fire Clay (used for pottery)
