NASA Needs Fake Moon Dust

crisco writes: "NASA's renewed interest in lunar exploration and "in situ resource utilization," or ISRU, is driving the need for tons of carefully faked lunar dust and sand for testing purposes:

"We don't have enough real moondust to go around," says Larry Taylor, director of Planetary Geosciences Institute at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. To run all the tests, "we need to make a well-qualified lunar simulant." And not just a few bags will do. "We need tons of it, mainly for working on technologies for diggers and wheels and machinery on the surface," adds David S. McKay, chief scientist for astrobiology at the Johnson Space Center (JSC).

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