NASA is asking for ideas to stop static electricity from zapping astronauts or critical hardware during moon missions.
The agency opened a "Lunar Grounding Challenge" to avoid situations where an astronaut on the moon could become "a walking, high voltage capacitor." Submissions for the $150,000 competition are due Jan. 15 and you can see the requirements here.
NASA is hoping to put astronaut boots at the lunar south pole in 2028 during the Artemis 4 or 5 missions, on the first landing mission since NASA's Apollo 17 in 1972. But simulations suggest that both "tribocharging" (electric-charge transfer between two objects) and plasma charging (from ambient gas in the region) could build up electric charge on spacesuits. "This problem is severely compounded when entering lunar shadows and permanently shadowed regions," the age...
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