Glenn Research Center, Apollo, and lunar soil mechanics

Check out http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/20jun_apollorelic.htm?list874429's June 20th article about current work at the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) and an Apollo relic. Members of the ISRU (In-Situ Resource Utilization) Regolith Characterization team at GRC, with help from Kennedy Space Center, replicated the scoop used by Surveyor 3 for digging lunar regolith. The team is using their replicated scoop to dig into simulated lunar regolith, and hopes this testbed and scoop will assist them in devising and testing alternate scoop designs as well as refining existing theories about lunar soil mechanics. Read more about the team's work at http://science.nasa.gov/, and find out more about the ISRU team and other NASA Exploration teams working on lunar soil projects at the NASA Exploration Soil Bibliographic Database.