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Re:The Roomba for Lawns Is Really Pissing Off Astronomers by g-clef on Thursday April 16, 2015 @11:02AM (#9388378)
The moon is a pretty bad place for any long-term base...lunar dust is really hard on equipment. The l4/l5 points, though, are very interesting and there's a bunch of projects putting probes at the various l4/l5 points in the solar system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_objects_at_Lagrangian_p...

Re:The Roomba for Lawns Is Really Pissing Off Astronomers by titzer on Thursday April 16, 2015 @11:10AM (#9388451)
There's no atmosphere, so its unlikely Lunar dust would contaminate any equipment. It settles immediately after landing and doesn't blow around. Minimal shielded for touchdown would be all that's necessary.
Re:The Roomba for Lawns Is Really Pissing Off Astronomers by drzaiusapelord on Thursday April 16, 2015 @11:14AM (#9388495)
Perhaps I wasn't clear. This would be an unmanned telescope. We're talking a one time landing of a piece of equipment. Dust will be a non-issue after the initial landing.
Re:The Roomba for Lawns Is Really Pissing Off Astronomers by g-clef on Thursday April 16, 2015 @11:52AM (#9388797)
Not necessarily. One of the interesting results from LADEE was that the measured lunar dust increased a few hours before the probe landed (attributed possibly to the geminid meteor shower). There's lots of stuff that can kick dust off the lunar surface.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Atmosphere_and_Dust_Envir...