Re:DNA has a 521-year half-life (2012)
by sandworm101 on Saturday February 05, 2022 @01:36PM
(#30224183)
Except the batteries on that rover are long dead. Many, if not all, of the plastic and paper insulators exposed to vacuum are now brittle and broken. All labels or painted surfaces are likely bleached white. Differential expansion during lunar daylight cycles has likely snapped a few things here and there too. Fifty years of exposure to static electric charges on the moon has put lunar dust in all sorts of places it doesn't belong. Powering up the electrical systems would be interesting/scary. Any metal parts that have been touching each other, again in vacuum, are now contact/cold-welded together. The wheels might still turn, but the bearings are likely shot. And that is all before any talk of micrometeors.
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