Because there's so damn little lunar atmosphere, essentially any object of absolutely any dimension falls and accelerates itself at the same 1.6 m/s until impact.

Thus absolutely any object from being the Goodyear blimp, or a cubic meter to a ccm or even a cmm that initiates falling from a stationary point that's merely 6.25 km off the deck will impact the moon at 10 km/s.

Of course, if that object were already traveling at some speed towards the moon, say making a closing speed of advance of 5 km/s, you merely add the 5 km/s SOA as factored onto the 10 km/s, and you've got yourself a nifty 15 km/s impact.

Being 6.25 km away from the moon, actually this isn't all that far away, as being roughly 1/10th the distance to the ME-L1 gravity-well null point, means that most of whatever passes within this 6.25 km zone will be drawn into the moon, even it were already traveling along at some glancing trajectory speed of 5 km/s.

Thus it's highly likely, as in most likely, that everything from the least dust particles to micrometeorites and of those not so micro meteorites will impact the moon at something in the range of 10+km/s.

There are certainly perfectly valid reasons associated with various closing trajectories, as for why an impact could become less than 10 km/s, however there are just as many of far more likely reasons and opportunities for just as many other items to be impacting at speeds of 15+km/s, 30+km/s and even 72+km/s.

So, there will always be the argument for using 5 km/s, as much as there should be those for using 15 km/s as the average of particle impact, however I'm using the 10 km/s as impact velocity.

@10 km/s the following kinetic rule applies; 1/2*M*V2

A grain of sand (not more than 1 cmm);  .004g * .5 * 100e6 = 200 kg impact.

A sizable chunk (not more than 1 ccm);  4 g * .5 * 100e6 = 200e3 kg or 200 t.

These calculations are not all that impressive if the incoming micro and not so micro meteorites are those striking the lunar surface. Though being within a meter of where the 0.004g was impacting at 200 kg worth of energy could create shards worth puncuring a moon suit, and surely if there were a direct hit, especially being the particle size of merely 1 mm, would in fact penitrate the suit, the suit occupant and most likely exit out the other side. I'll not bother discussing what the larger 4 gram issue represents becuse, that's simply not a survivable situation unless the impact zone is somewhat down field and at least 100 meters off from where you're standing. Because of the lunar gravity and there being no atmosphere, this is exactly why meteorite shards are so freaking lethal, and over such a terrific distance.

I suppose now you're going to insist that there's few if any such micro or not so micro meteorite to being had. OK, since I'm only suggesting there's one such micro meteorite per square meter per day (24 hrs), then perhaps you need to tell folks where all that moon dirt came from, and/or how long it took for 10 cm worth of said dirt to accumulate, or even of one CM worth. My math suggest 27,473 years/cm at the rate of receiving 1/m2/day, even though some of those not so micro meteorites managed to create craters of all sizes, as in one way or another, all of those meteorites and of their shards combined with whatever was dislodged from the moon is probably still there, as pristine as ever except for whatever the radiation contributed towards modifying their properties.

A perfectly good analogy of those very same particles of nearly dust that's incoming towards Earth, as this is exactly the same sorts of particles arriving at the moon, whereas those would never reach the surface of Earth but would otherwise impact horrifically with the lunar surface because, the moon has NO atmosphere. Of what's entering towards Earth but still at the altitude of your typical satellite are obviously not yet fully accelerated, nor could they ever obtain their velocity potential due to the atmosphere of Earth that extends in sufficient bulk out to at least 1000 km, if not measurably well into the Van Allen zone of death.

Speaking of bulk; The bulk of the lunar surface is very basalt like, of somewhat similar to Earth's dark basalt which clearly accounts for much of the lunar 11% overall reflective index. This means there's plenty of terratory or zones that are much darker, such as nearly soot black so as to represent less than 5% reflective, whereas there's other areas or zones of lighter color that should be considered as obtaining nearly a 25% reflective index. If there were any actual 50+% zones, that much solar reflective capability would be nearly blinding to look at, especially by way of unfiltered telescope.

A perfectly good example of a photo that's apparently not of our moon but being promoted or touted as such, is this offering: http://moonpans.com/a16flag.htm

Unfortunately there's either NO cigar nor any such lunar luck in the above photo, as for just going by the surface illumination reflection index alone is simply so freaking way off, and there's absolutely an insufficient degree of meteorites and shards strewn about, of what should otherwise have been a relatively rugged as well as dark basalt like surface, along with at least a few stars dimly recorded, even though a number of those stars were anything but dim in the eyes of any astronaut. I'd hardly consider the likes of Sirius/abc being dim, nor Earth for that matter.

Just for the added exercise of it all, take another look-see at those Mars surface meteorites and shards, such as this official NASA JPL image recently published in the Smithsonian (Nov. 2003) issue, and to remember that Mars actually ofers somewhat of an atmosphere that eliminates a number of smaller meteorites from ever reaching the surface in the first place, and of diminishing so many others to a fraction of their original size. Of whatever impact is obviously moderated to some extent by the thin but mostly CO2 Mars atmosphere, thereby a considerable degree of impact energy simply wasn't there to be had. Lo and behold, none of that's the case with respect to our moon, as absolutely everything comes in fast and furious, accelerating nearly all the way at 1.6 m/s. Even though Mars offers twice the gravity influence, the net result of having that thin atmosphere diminishes those Mars impacts to being considerably less intense than for anything lunar, thus also poses the extreme difficultly in actually having to perform a controlled landing on the moon, so that there remains some point in attempting a return to Earth.

Most meteorites, the vast majority as clearly depicted in the previous Mars image, as well as of those most recently acquired images, are somewhat dark gray to near black or at least much darker upon average than their surrounding redish/brown Mars soil, especially being the case of of those coming to rest where there's absolutely no oxygen nor water to breakdown their surface of minerals that's most often of other basalts and/or of iron like minerals or blends in between, unless of course we're speaking of some CO2 dry-ice impact, of which wouldn't stick around if it impacted upon the tropics of Mars nor of the fully illuminated moon.

Focus upon those micro-meteorite impact zones;
Of whatever lunar impact worthy shards to being seen would be those offering a combination of the meteorite as well as for whatever lunar basalt that was fractured by those horrific impacts. Thus dark basalt merely begets more dark basalt (not lighter contrasting and certainly little if anything nearly white being exposed). Even a mere 200 kg impact if applied as a 1 mm projectile would seriously fracture whatever it hit, where I'd expect a 1 mm impacting at a worth of 200 kg could fracture diamond, as that's 200 kg * 645 = 129,000 psi.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of the Apollo survey by photographic means was either handicapped by the morons taking those images, or badly skewed by all the horrific radiation and thermal stress imposed upon the plastic KODAK film, or perhaps those astronauts somehow having mastered their technic of hand-crafted burn and dodge of those originals so as to artificially protray the lunar landscape as being 50+% reflective as well as somehow making every conceivable effort at not acquiring any of those pesky vibrant stars, somehow intentionally preventing them from ever being recorded. I could go on and on about nearly all of those Apollo images, but that would make me look and sound as though I didn't believe we've been to and walked on the moon, and that would be entirely unamerican, as well as unhealthy to being in public.

Unlike the horizon here on earth, imaging mere inches above the lunar landspace is absolutely crystal clear and as dark as well as starlight contrasting as skys ever get. Without an atmosphere there's not even a partial glow of reflected sunlight, as certainly no dust nor pollution, only absolutely nothingness except for all those vibrant stars representing terrific sources of visible spectrum as well as loads more of near UV and of the much higher energy worth of UV/abc spectrums, plus their continuous delivery of extreme UV rays (less than 100 nm) and of all those nastier cosmic rays that are in themselves DNA/RNA lethal as well as responsible for creating their fair share of secondary hard x-rays with whatever they happen to run into.

This secondary radiation is NOT an issue of reflecting x-rays, though I've been informed that a lunar surface should reflect at least 1% of those entering as x-rays, but it's of the bad reaction of what's influxing lunar substances and of whatever else is shielding your butt, such as your lander and/or moon suit, that's responsible for creating additional and thereby entirely new x-rays that are absolutely running amuck in every conceivable direction. Seems without an atmosphere, those newly created x-rays travel great distances until they're absorbed by whatever and/or whomever.

BTW; even with certain optical filters applied, the KODAK film utilized was highly sensitive to the UV spectrum (especially of B&W film). In order to adequately cut those UV spectrums from being recorded would have required an orange O-50 if not deep red R-25 filter (possibly both). Which of course if such approprate UV filters had been utilized, as then the lunar landscape as well as those moon suits would have been recorded as more contrasty and perhaps even depicted as much darker contents, though not exactly true to life as seen by the inferior sensory spectrum of the human eye, but certainly a whole lot more interesting, which is why Ansel Adams did what he did that made his pictures become so much more interesrting as well as invaluable in recording of what there was to see, far better than what we'd otherwise have to look at.

Naturally, if there were a proper usage of said filters and of God forbid vastly superior B&W film, all the NASA photo purest would instantly screamed distortion and/or pixel manipulation, of which this sort of bigoted analogy would have entirely disqualified any and all such images, as well as those by the works by Ansel Adams as perhaps not even being of Earth.

Of course our sun provides the vast bulk of what's so illuminating as well as lethal for being situated on the moon, which is obviously why there's so much He3 to being had, as effectively stored within the highly accessable lunar surface substances. Besides what's been solar delivered and/or infused, there has been subsequent remote surveys that clearly indicate the bulk of the moon being considerably more radioactive than Earth, somewhat like living next door to Chernobyl (11 mSv per year or 3 mr/day), with the exception of this lunar radiation issue not being of any surface contamination, along with having a thermal nuclear core that's actually not all that far below the surface, all of which means that the moon is offering us a thermal nuclear loaded gun, plus having loads of He3 to boot, along with 5+ terra watts of recession energy, plus nearly an unobstructed solar influx that could be easily energy tapped into processing whatever amounts of minerals as well as for producing those terrific basalt composites for creating the LSE-CM/ISS and of eventual export to places like Earth. I haven't even mentioned the tether dipole energy extraction, nor of those horrifically huge flywheels counter-rotating at ME-L1, as that's just gobs worth of energy storage as icing on the cake.

In order to take the fullest advantage of what the moon has to offer, for that task we should have already had the likes of a Lunar Space Elevator within our grasp if not fully operational, as the LSE-CM/ISS would not only have provided the proper means by which folks could travel from the stationary CM/ISS depot to/from the lunar surface in safety and style, but this LSE would enable whatever as being efficiently imported as well as mostly exported. Of course, the Counter Mass (CM) and of it's sizable internal abode of the International Space Station (CM/ISS) accommodating the 1e6 m3 of radiation and meteorite secure infrastructure, I'd think this would be rather nifty.

Of course, I could rant on and on about why all the LSE-CM/ISS benefits that far outweigh the negatives, but that would be making myself into one of those "know it alls", of which I'm not. Unlike those opposing absolutely anything and everything associated with our moon (at least up until our resident warlord placed his other foot in his mouth), as I even make mistakes from time to time, like the really big mistake of informing our strugling and accomplishment needy NASA about another wee oversite of what's to be found as existing on Venus, as easy pickens if there ever were such. I even learned a great deal since, that of those pesky laws of physics fully uphold the likeihood that I'm way more right than not, even the astrobiology or exobiology or just plain old biology notions of what's entirely possible to have survived on such a hot and nasty planet like Venus is within the freaking ballpark.

Though Venus is considered by most folks (including myself prior to 3 years ago) as being way too hot and nasty, though it's environment is actually less nasty than the moon and, it's not nearly as vaporising hot when the full extent of the environment pressure has been honestly taken into account, and of those elevation opportunities explored along with the rather enormous seasonal benefits of their having a 2900+hr worth of nighttime in which to manage within an otherwise tough greenhouse situation. At least the Venus season of nighttime is far less of a radiation dosage than our moon (possibly even less dosage than what we receive here on Earth, especially cosmic wise), and there are darn few if any meteorite issues, much less micro-meteorites getting through, and of the crystal clear atmosphere is absolutely ideal for aerodynamics as well as for the likes of rigid airships, plus the fact the CO2-->CO/O2 represents that fuel and oxidiser to operate such aerodynamic equipment is already there for the taking, nicely preheated and everything, though a certain amount of h2o2 could be processed from those terrifically cool nighttime clouds.

It's entirely true that of any pathetically stupid human that's so easily snookered doesn't stand a chance in hell of surviving on Venus (much less Mars), especially of all those educated in Huston Texas by the sorts of moral "high standards and accountability" folks admired by our fearless snipe WMD hunting warlord leader. Though if you actually had half a brain, and had a few of those proper motivations (like wanting to stay alive), and if your species had hundreds if not thousands of years to devise upon a greenhouse work-around as to adapting and/or evolving sufficiently so as to making a nocturnal go of it, as then life (NOT as we know it) on Venus could have managed in spite of our arrogance, which is not specifying a thriving sort of existence, but merely an existence that's better off than being stuck here on Earth with the sorts of bigoted folks having absolutely no reguard for other human nor other species, by way of destroying our environment and otherwise inventing WMD just for the pure shock and awe value in obtaining a sort of Pope/Cathar quota of carnage, especially upon those holding onto energy resources being of the most worthy of targets to torment.

Since there are so few honestly educated folks on Earth that probably could make a go of it on Venus, my thoughts have turned to the highly conservative notions of interplanetary communications, as for accommodating by way of the cheap-ass alternative that's been doable for decades, and which can still be accommodated for less than a penny on the dollar as opposed to our sending off one probe.

Consider that there's nothing radio about Venus;  Unlike Earth, Venus need not be into radio, though being into illumination is most certainly to being somewhat of a species universal requirement, unless we're suggesting upon contacting some braille planet as where we obviously obtained all of our satellite image interpreters (especially those WMD spotters), of which fortunately Venus is not braille. Those Venus clouds are not solids, as their opacity for certain spectrums are sufficient, as great as 50% opacity at certain spectrums when the much cooler nighttime permits those otherwise dense clouds to being lower and thinner to perhaps offering a 50:1 contrast ratio, as opposed to their daylight season offering a 20:1 contrast variance.

Earth's radio capabilities cover less than 0.01% of recorded human existence;  thus what does that tell you about some other species of highly intelligent folks, lizard folks or perchance Cathars having need of radio for anything. I mean, what damn good is radio if your nearest planet has become so thoroughly dishonest and corrupted, and subsequently has pathetically screwed up and contaminated itself intellectually as well as physically beyond any hope of recovery?

For considering the virtues of light (Venus nocturnal style);
Even their daylight opacity is roughly averaging 25% of what's between 350 and 450 nm, 15% of what between 450 and 550 nm and 10% of what's 550 to 650 nm with less than 5% opacity of what's over 750 nm, but then almost nothing that's IR gets through, which is exactly why there such a toasty greenhouse environment. Whereas the more towards UV/a the more opacity is obtained, losing ground as we venture from UV/a towards UV/b, with far less if any of the UV/b>c making it past go, but that's a good sign, as UV/b and c spectrums are potentially lethal, at least lethal to humanoid species, whereas evolved and thereby acclimated lizard folk might fair just fine and dandy.

Even if radio was applied on our behalf (because we're so pathetically stupid and all), the electrolytic nature of those surrounding clouds along with the proximity to the sun would greatly diminish whatever to/from signal properties. And, unless we delivered our own working two-way (semi or full-duplex) communication kiosk to the Venus surface, as that's about the only sure-fire notion of our ever knowing which frequency to apply and manage.

Though because of the relationship of Venus with it's close proximity to the sun being what it is, and of the seasonal rotation making each surface probe good for at most 50% of any given nighttime season (roughly 60 days worth per probe location) with at least 3 months worth of dead-air time as solar blocked represents our having to add further insult to injury of whatever applied radio, by having to send a bare minimum of four (preferably 6+ units) of such communication kiosk that can be of those properly situated at very specific and sufficiently elevated sites.

Whereas certain spectrums of laser cannon can be utilized efficiently, and of those being extremely well focused 24/7 upon a given terratory of Venus that's within their season of nighttime, especially terrific focus capability if we had our very own efficient to launch and deploy TRACE-II class instrument stationkeeping itself at Venus L2 (VL2), providing the perfect location for performing such laser transponder duties as well as continuing planetary survey via SAR imaging and for otherwise continuing with whatever extreme solar monitoring while being beneficially 90% shadowed by Venus.

You actually couldn't ask for a better solar monitoring location than Venus L2, other than perhaps Mercury L2. As from time to time the TRACE-II satellite could be maneuvered a little off stationkeeping so as to obtain greater solar view, as well as continuing to perform as the communications transponder relay duties. Of course this TRACE-II wouldn't be the compact version like it's predecessor TRACE, as more likely the TRACE-II could become a 1500+ kg composite of what the original (250 kg) TRACE performed, along with the updated SAR capabilities of SAR imaging and of those laser cannons and of their counterpart photon receivers concentrating upon the 350 nm to 450 nm spectrum.

Fortunately, nothing required of TRACE-II is R&D, as so much of what's needed is "off the shelf" of essentially existing technology that's been a done deal for well over a decade. Naturally there's a mission packaging quagmire that's always the case when there's more to accomplish than mission payload well allow. Of course, there's always the deployment of a robotic laser cannon transceiver as being situated on the moon, as such a proficient interplanetary communications instrument should tend to go, that's only clumping moon dirt cheap, as opposed to the TRACE-II-->VL2 effort.

I realise this TRACE-II concept is simply way too dirt cheap and otherwise scientifically invaluable to what's being obtained from Mars, as so far we're obtaining those absolutely terrific images from Mars of exactly what we should have already known about such a frozen and irradiated to death planet. At least so far there's been absolutely no new science obtained, and still the beat for Mars goes on and on like the Energizer Bunny. At least the Mars terrain is holding true to what it should be, as offering a proper solar reflective index, and as being sufficiently strewn with meteorites and shards worthy of what the Mars atmosphere can't possibly prevent from making it to the surface.

Mars meteorites and shards are those only to being outdone by the vastly more terrific morgue of what's situated on our moon, as there's absolutely nothing stopping and/or modifying of what those lunar debris fields have been collecting for supposedly millions of years worth. The lunar debris of micro and not so micro meteorites offers a pristine scientific gold mind if not a freaking diamond mind worth of what our universe has been comprised of, and certainly of mostly what's been within our solar system has to be exactly where it been stored for nearly all of eternity, including of anything that could possibly have been Earth related (pre and post Apollo).

Of course, for any of that lunar wealth and prosperity to becoming part of our experience and science future, not to forget about the truly horrific energy potential that's more than capable of being provided by He3, for that we'll actually need to go there some day and set up camp, then perhaps micro rocket various samples back towards Earth, possibly even using a magnetic cannon/gun as to export whatever tonnage towards Earth should have been within the cards as existing technology, of what's been doable, and of still being moon dirt cheap.

On the subject matter of initially having to import a little energy to the moon, for that I've focused upon h2o2 (hydrogen peroxide) and a little cash of c12h26 (kerosene), as the fuel and oxidiser for the IRRC (Internal Rocket Rotary Combustion) engine that'll operate items like the LM-1 (Lunar Metro - 1) bus plus whatever other needs for having mechanical energy on demand. This h2o2 (if near frozen) might also be refered to as slush hydrogen (gelled o2h2) http://gltrs.grc.nasa.gov/reports/1998/TM-1998-206306.pdf, or possibly as an even more potent formulation of 2h2o2 (Brown's Gas) that'll essentially knock your socks off by imploding. In whichever case, the prime initial bulk ingrediant for creating h2o2 or 2h2o2 is just water, along with the applied physics of "energy in = energy out" plus whatever the original volume/density of h2o contributes. Generally, in order to get the most bang per kg is obtained by adding a percentage of c12h26 or prefferably JP-10 that's offering a heat content of 39,434 MJ/m3 (141,500 Btu/gal), as opposed to JP-8 offering a lesser volumetric energy content of about 35,000 MJ/m3 (125,800 Btu/gal) couldn't hurt, (actually the JP-9 formulation offers the most bang at 142,000 Btu/gal).

As usual, your initial Borg recoil/knee-jerk rejection upon any of this lunar or Venus stuff is most likely based upon only that which has been methodically programmed into your thick skull by the collective, which is not to be saying that the collective will not prevail, as it nearly did for the likes of Hitler and otherwise prevailed quite nicely for the Pope, as you'll notice there are damn few if any Cathars around to object, as well as being somewhat the ultimate plans for the outcome of the 6-Day war to have exterminated the likes of those pesky Palestinians, but then there was our unfortunate USS LIBERTY involvement and subsequent 9/11 fiasco, with our current level of misleadership likely to be creating more energy related tit for tats to come.

Sort of makes you feel Texas style warm and fuzzy all over, as in chuck full of all those morals of "high standards and accountability" or otherwise ordained along by the "so what's the difference" policy of what's making our country into such a worthy target.

Don't get me wrong; I sort of like America, I just don't care for the levels of dishonesty and subsequent dog waggings on behalf of so much butt protecting, and/or upon justifying our recent levels of energy greed and power over the vast majority of nice folks that apparently no longer suit the desires nor honest interest of those misdirecting our mutual resources, our mutual technologies and placing the morals of modern society into the nearest toilet. Other than all that, I'm good for go, as in all for whatever our moon has to offer, but then onward towards Venus where there's at least a slim chance we'll be understood as merely misguided pagan worshiping fools that were so easily snookered by the sorts of folks that had all "the right stuff".

Other somewhat difficult readings:
Guth Venus LSE-CM/ISS and the GW Bush Moon
What went so terribly wrong with those Apollo missions
Instead of our going to Venus, lets just give them a call
A local area code call to Venus is cheaper than moon dirt, even if the damn stuff wont clump
"SADDAM HUSSEIN and The SAND PIRATES" by; Henry Kroll