Scientists have published the first 300 days of radiation data from Curiosity on Mars.Scientists have published the first 300 days of radiation data from Curiosity on Mars.
The results suggest that while the radiation on Mars requires some shielding, most of the worst radiation a traveler would be exposed to would occur during the journey in space to and from Earth. The graph below illustrates this.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Scientists have published the first 300 days of radiation data from Curiosity on Mars.
The results suggest that while the radiation on Mars requires some shielding, most of the worst radiation a traveler would be exposed to would occur during the journey in space to and from Earth. The graph below illustrates this.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Gotta be one of the lowest risks of a deep space mission. Riding the rocket to orbit is more dangerous than this.
One of the reasons I stopped listening to any “medical” episodes of The Space Show is that concept of mission risk is totally ignored when discussing radiation hazards of spaceflight. Astronauts are aware of their (theoretical) increased risk of cancer later in life, and yet they choose to fly anyway.
All the data suggests the radiation boogeyman is a myth.
I think there are more than a few people in history that would say the radiation is more than just a “boogeyman” It is a real risk. Also consider this is logarithmic scale. Yes these bars look close together but ISS to the journey to Mars is still a increase of 2-3 times.
Maybe that won’t have a long term effect but it would be foolish not to take it into consideration and if we can develop better lighter radiation shielding that makes space fight all that much easier.
Double the Mars transit bar for a round trip and stack it on the 500 days on Mars bar. Then make the comparison to an ISS visit of the same duration.
Initially, risk from radiation exposure may be acceptable. It wouldn’t matter for a flags and brags scenario but don’t space cadets want a sustainable pressence off our planet? In the long term we want to mitigate risks like this.
So your chart shows about:
– 5 or 6 times more radiation exposure for 6 months outside Earths magnetic fields in free space on route to Mars vrs in LEO in the ISS
– 200 times more radiation per month/year on route to Mars then a average person in the US gets.
– 70 times more radiation per month/year on route to Mars then the legal limits for a radition worker in the US gets.
– 1/3rd as much per month on Mars as in transit to Mars
Nasty levels.
>.. Double the Mars transit bar for a round trip and stack it on the 500 days on Mars
> bar. Then make the comparison to an ISS visit of the same duration.
About `15-24 times the exposure as 6 months on on the ISS.
That actually seems low?
??
Your talking significant amounts of radiation – and this not a high solar flare period.
I misunderstood the scale of the graph. I thought stacking the bars would better show exposure over the duration of a round trip but it isn’t an apples to apples comparison.
Maybe they made the graph this way so it would fit in the report but it isn’t an accurate portrayal of the data.
To me, it looks like there is a significant increase of exposure. A consistent scale for the graph would show this especially over the duration of a trip to Mars and back.
One other thing that should be added to the chart is a bar for NASA’s current limit on an astronaut’s lifetime exposure. I don’t know what that is. Maybe a trip to Mars might fall within the lifetime limit?
Lets just say that the idea of tossing someone into a simple lightweight space capsule for a sight seeing tour around Mars is out of the question.
I guess they might need a bit more shielding than the ISS provides.
Or just plan on having cancer a week after getting back to Earth.
I looked it up NASA Earth orbiting crew limits are 100 (mSv)/year. The chart shows 2 180 trips to/from Mars, and 500 day stay on the surface would expose astronauts to 1050 mSv. over 860 days, or 2.35 years. NASA limits would be 235 msv over the same time period. Or about 4 and a half times the total limits, but seven times the limits for the transit times.
And this is with NASA very high rad limits.