Production of lunar soil simulant in Turkey

Abstract

It is obvious that lunar structures will be constructed on lunar surface, and that the materials to be used are only lunar soil. That is why lunar soils has to be investigated thoroughly as to its physical, chemical and mechanical properties. Unfortunately there is not enough lunar rock or soil brought to Earth for being able to run these analyses. For this purpose, several simulants have been produced in countries like US, Canada, Japan, and China etc. This paper is about an attempt carried out for production of lunar soil simulant in Turkey. For this purpose, undegenerated soil samples are collected from relatively young regions of Turkey, like Kula Sandal Divlit region; the properties of these soils including their chemical properties are compared to properties of lunar soils. As a result of these comparisons, a mix is produced to represent lunar soil. It is hoped that this study will be repeated with more samples from other parts of Turkey to find other simulants to represent lunar soils and rocks in research about lunar constructions.