Astronauts face unique visual challenges at lunar South Pole | Hacker News Reader

Astronauts face unique visual challenges at lunar South Pole

phys.org

54 pointspseudolus21 comments

That moment while driving when the pavement is wet and the sun is at a low angle and suddenly the ground is as bright as the sun and you can’t see anything. But all the time!

It sounds more complicated than just figuring out how to prevent glare. Even if you do that, the terrain will always be illuminated in this strange high contrast scenario. I find myself thinking about how photographers use reflectors to avoid this in their portrait subjects.

Meanwhile, solar panels might be super efficient because they get to use the moon as a giant reflector. Shedding heat will be an interesting problem though... perhaps thermal panels and Stirling generators instead of PV? They could save a bunch of weight by just using the water-ice when they get there. Sounds like a fun project to work on!

Did they consider a helmet filter that put a dark spot over the sun dynamically? Perhaps with an lcd layer.

For 20 years, I’ve wondered why we don’t have that in cars.

Its a tough feature to implement- the sun's position in the glass depends on your perspective as well, not just the sun's position in the sky.

Easier to do in a helmet than in a windshield, I suppose.

Perspective shouldn't be a problem. Some cars already do eye tracking, using a camera placed near the gauge cluster, as part of a driver monitoring system.

Eye tracking isn't enough--you need to know where the eyes are, not where they are looking.

that's the easier part of eye tracking. eye tracker sensors work by working out where your eyes are and determine where you're looking by calculating the angle of your pupils and approximating the direction.

I forget which one, but there's a Larry Niven science fiction story that uses this as a plot point. Our hero takes advantage of the sun blocker spot on the villian's plane or ship by approaching in the line of sight of the planet's sun.

I believe this strategy was also used in WWI, but just hiding in the glare of the sun.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_von_Richthofen

“Beware the Hun in the Sun” is apparently what Allied pilots used to say.

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/archive-exhibitions/wo...

Grendel, one of the stories in Neutron Star, set on a planet orbiting a very bright star where everyone has to wear protective goggles with sun-tracking black dots for each eye.

Our hero needs to steal the bad guy's (flying) car, at sunset and circles until his shadow points at the car..

This is a very old fighter pilot tactic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_position_(air_combat)

Imagine blocking the infestation of billboards on earth with a dynamic shade.

In some place the entire windscreen would be blacked out

Yep, that's the case in many parts of Southern California.

Reminds me of the peril-sensitive glasses in H2GT2G: "At the first hint of trouble, they turn totally black and thus prevent you from seeing anything that might alarm you."

They Live!

Most places seem to have just outlawed them.

Sounds expensive. I propose a dynamic directional umbrella hat.

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