"Moon dirt"

Sidewalk or regular writing chalk. Chopped or ground up.

Use regular Portland cement as that is what the lunar surface looks like.

I'm 100% sure there is at least one other discussion on here about this exact topic. Maybe 1 1/2 to 2 years ago?

Don't use anything from the kitchen. If the mice don't eat it first, it'll turn yellow.

Thanks guys!  Those are the exact ideas I was looking for!  I'm gonna do some experimenting.

@mitsdude:  Yah, sorry if its a repeat.  I put in several searches with "0 results found" and after the first 10 pages of posts I got weary and lost patience.  :)

@GMorrison:  Thats a good one!  I would have never thought of that.

Lunar albedo (fractional reflectivity) is only about 0.12 – in other words, asphalt.

To Orbit!

Thanks guys!  Those are the exact ideas I was looking for!  I'm gonna do some experimenting.

@mitsdude:  Yah, sorry if its a repeat.  I put in several searches with "0 results found" and after the first 10 pages of posts I got weary and lost patience.  :)

@GMorrison:  Thats a good one!  I would have never thought of that.

Yeah, been there with the search results. Lots of duplicate/false hits. Didn't intend my response to be a thread crap.

Well yes and no. The moon has an albedo factor of 0.12, but that's an average. In other words; half moon. There's also a bunch of other variables such as incidence of reflection to the observer on earth, all giving a variable of up to 50%. So an .17 albedo is possible- wet dirt and grass. But certainly not like white powder.

Earth is a nice .35 on account of our clouds.

Anyone remember the Vangelis album "Albedo 039"?

Might want to look at tile grout.

Well, I prefer REAL moon dirt of course, but I think the chalk (or plaster) option is probably the best as you can break that stuff down into smaller pieces as needed.

Whoah! WHOOP...WHOOP!  Nerd Alert!  Just kidding guys.  I have no idea what you're talking about, but I get the gist by the picture.  I started out trying to get avery axact detail right (yes I'm another perfectionist by nature).  But at this point, close enough is good enough.  I have to at least get 1 model done!! (out of 5 in the works).  I appreciate EVERYONE'S tips!

Oh and by the way,  I AM gonna make it a few shades darker now.  :)

Short story- In my day job, I curate display cases among other things. We recently installed cases in the new football wing of a D1 University. And one of the items was a football that went to space on the shuttle. One of the guys from ANOTHER vendor was carrying it around.

"Don't lose that!" I told him.

"What's it worth?".

"Well, you could spend $ 25 billion to get them another one".

The moon is made of green cheese, as I recall from childhood days......