NASA Was Worried About Quicksand On The Moon

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Just about every movie and TV show from the 1960s until the 1990s featured the threat of quicksand. It became one of the most worn-out tropes in all western popular culture.

The threat has been a bit exaggerated, but quicksand is real. It’s so real, even NASA engineers considered the danger of quicksand on the moon before the apollo mission. They were worried astronauts would land on the lunar soil, only to be swallowed up.

Non-Newtonian fluids, like quicksand, don’t follow the normal rules of liquids and solids. Typically, quicksand is a thixotropic or shear thinning material that appears solid but, when your weight hits it, its viscosity plummets and it acts like a liquid.

Vanadium features video explorations of the many fascinations of materials scientist, Christopher Rankin PhD.

All music by Christopher Rankin

[Ixions]

Quicksand is an example of contractive Dilatancy. It's metastable so it doesn't maintain thixotropic properties after being compacted.