Data from an experiment on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has confirmed that light plastics can provide sufficient protection for humans against radiation.
Data from an experiment on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has confirmed that light plastics can provide sufficient protection for humans against radiation.
This is very good news indeed. Combined with the data from Curiosity, which indicated that the radiation levels in interplanetary space were less intense that expected, it appears that radiation will not be a serious obstacle to interplanetary travel.
Now we just have to get the bone loss and vision problems solved.
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Data from an experiment on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has confirmed that light plastics can provide sufficient protection for humans against radiation.
This is very good news indeed. Combined with the data from Curiosity, which indicated that the radiation levels in interplanetary space were less intense that expected, it appears that radiation will not be a serious obstacle to interplanetary travel.
Now we just have to get the bone loss and vision problems solved.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
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4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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Good news indeed!
Hopefully the nanoracks centrifuge can pave the way to a larger experiment where we can identify if some level of artificial gravity can address bone loss and vision problems.
Or perhaps G-Lab will get off the ground and provide us some data.
http://ssi.org/2012/04/ssi-update-april-2012-introduction-to-g-lab/
Two words: Tethered spinning.
I very much hope so!
I think that a careful reading of the news article does not necessarily result in the conclusion that the GCR problem is now solved.
I see these data points as good news, even those that tell us that we need more or heavier shielding or that bone loss or eye damage may occur.
The more data points that we collect the better will be our designs to protect our spacefaring crews. Improving safety in space is going to be a long-term mission, with many lessons learned the hard way. The more that we learn before sending crews into harm’s way the better off those crews will be.
Creative solutions such as tethered spinning will go a long way toward solving the problems that we now know and the problems that we will discover as we explore the solar system in person.
Still going to need ‘storm shelters’ on ships and ground installations for those times when the Sun gets a bit techy.
What’s a few extra x-rays going to hurt!
Yup, according to the article, astronauts would receive nearly the career cap on what NASA considers a safe exposure to radiation on the journey. Although, is a 5% greater chance to get cancer that big a deal?
Seems like everyone gets cancer if they live long enough.
Solar particle events are way more than a few extra x-rays. In fact, Apollo was lucky to miss an event in 1972 which would have been immediately lethal had the crew been out on an EVA.
None-the-less, a storm shelter is entirely feasible. I haven’t been able to track down the real numbers but it seems like a shelter surrounded with 10 cm of your water, food, and waste should be sufficient protection.
GCRs are the real issue, but it is looking to me like you would need about 7 tonnes of shielding (food, water, waste, equipment, & polyethylene) to bring one’s cancer risk down to 4%.