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as nasa plans future exploration

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missions there's much we still have to

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learn and the space station is an

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excellent test bed for many of the

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studies that will help us travel beyond

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earth to an asteroid or to mars

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lori meigs is at

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marshall space flight center with more

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about one such investigation lori

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well regolith is a term you may have

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heard used a lot back in the lunar

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landing days to refer to the dust that

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really stuck to the spacesuits and the

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hardware well to travel to farther

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bodies in the solar system we need to

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understand how regolith acts in

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microgravity and strata 1 is an

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experiment that is doing just that on

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the space station i spoke with kristin

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john she's the co-investigator and i got

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the dirt on this pesky soil

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it's an experiment to study asteroid

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regolith so regolith is basically the

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fine dust and powder that you find on

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the surface of any atmosphereless body

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so on the moon or asteroids or comets

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they're covered with this this regolith

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material so we're interested in studying

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jack schmidt having a few problems

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you heard a lot about that when the

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astronauts came back from the moon the

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regolith that was really stuck to their

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spacesuits and stuff so this is

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something we're having to learn about

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and how to deal with right exactly yeah

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so when the apollo astronauts came back

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they reported all sorts of issues with

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the regolith it would get into their

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joints it would interrupt with equipment

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and the space space suits spacecraft

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everything so it's something we have to

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be considerate of

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so why study it on the space station um

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so basically we want to study in the

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same environment that it's exposed to on

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these bodies uh so for now we can only

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study regolith for 30 seconds at a time

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on the vomit comet so by going to the

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station we can actually study it for a

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longer period of time in the

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microgravity environment that this

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regulator exists

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so when we say study it what are we

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doing with it

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right so we're actually basically just

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watching how it evolves over time so we

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basically have four tubes that we're

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sending up to space station that are

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filled with different regular stimulants

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and we're watching each one with a

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camera and we're just watching what

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happens over time in the microgravity

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environment so it's like having

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asteroids on the space station right

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exactly yep that's what we're going for

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we're very excited and there's uh

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surprisingly there's a large number of

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scientists that are very interested in

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regolith from a scientific point of view

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and also from an exploration point of

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view so there's a lot of people that are

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excited about strata 1 and future strata

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missions as well

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is it just

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strictly for future exploration or is

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there some other thing we can learn from

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this that'll benefit earth yeah so

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there's a lot so there's not a lot of

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benefits necessarily to earth but

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there's a lot of benefits to science to

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understanding this regular from a

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scientific point of view but also from

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an exploration point of view so when we

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go to these bodies in the future we have

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to know how to interact with them um all

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these all these bodies that are covered

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with them we need to anchor or attach to

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these surfaces because they have very

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low gravity so we have to be able to

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interact with the regolith and

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understand how we'll attach to them or

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anchor anchor to the bodies so so that's

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an important reason to study regularly

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and so then it's a whole nother ballgame

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when you find out what it really does

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right exactly yep

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and for more information on this and

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other experiments on the station go to

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nasa.gov

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station and look under the research and