A Mars Mission's Greatest Challenge: Radiation

daSeiz writes "A New York Times article explores the possible effects of prolonged radiation exposure in deep space. Surprisingly, very little is known about the subject. We'll need to find innovative new ways of shielding spacecraft from fraction-of-lightspeed interstellar rubbish if we're ever to spend much time outside our own magnetosphere."

Who didn't see this coming

[PatrickThomson]

Tinfoil hats!

Radiations

[Anonymous Coward]

Brb... I am going to buy my anti-radiation suite

It's a conspiracy

[Prince_Ali]

Every sensible person knows that a space craft that is shielded enough, and large enough to allow a human to survive outside our magnetosphere would be too heavy to reach escape velocity. That is why a human has never left Earth's orbit... Apollo indeed!

I've done the math. It would take shielding 100x stronger than the stuff I use to build the hats that keep the psychotronic weapons from affecting my brain!

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[account_deleted]

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radiation shielding

[Ba3r]

Ready.gov [ready.gov] has plenty of useful information on radiation shielding. If you have a thick shield between yourself and the radioactive materials more of the radiation will be absorbed by the thick shield, and you will be exposed to less. Perhaps NASA could use some insightful advice from the Dept of Homeland Securty. I bet a couple rolls of duct tape and some plastic would be quite useful in Space!

Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Just reconfigure the modulators.

Whoa, dude.

[shystershep]

changes in motor skills are tested by stimulating animals with cocaine and measuring movement with infrared beams

They tried marijuana first, but the mice just got paranoid and started eating everything in sight.

Star Trek solution

[rf0]

Well we will have to reroute main engine power through the deflector dish to create a graviton feedback wave which will in turn allow us to turn the radiation into a non-harful form of chocolate

Rus

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Captain, we just reversed the polarity. It should work.

Re:oh...

[jandrese]

Who said it has to be less? 3/2 is a fraction.

The way to sell it

[downix]

$30 to $60 billion to get to Mars? I know how to do it. Tell Dubya that Martians are stockpiling weapons of mass destruction!

Re:Comparing Price

[Kenja]

All George Bush needs to do is say that he has evidence (don?t say what it is) of weapons of mass destruction on the mars surface. Then he can get as much funding as the project needs.

Have you ever flashy thinged me?

[RealProgrammer]

Intermittently, an assistant went into the heavily shielded target room to adjust the target, a procedure that requires a retina scan by a security device and the insertion of special keys to assure that no one unauthorized enters.

It would take more than a neuralizer to get me to go in there.

I wonder where on the assistant they insert the special keys?

Well if they send four astronauts...

[psxndc]

You know one will come back all bendy-like, one will be on fire, another will be invisible, and one will be made of orange rock. And I ain't even a PhD.

psxndc

Re:Who didn't see this coming

[tds67]

Tinfoil hats!

To hell with that--lead jock straps!

Shielding material

[wowbagger]

The problem is finding a shielding material that will absorb the radiation that will affect a human body, without transmuting radiation that would pass harmlessly through a human into radiation harmful to a human. Thus, you need a shielding material that is cheap and has the same absorbsion parameters as a human.

I suggest using spammers.

Re:radiation shielding

[phillymjs]

I bet a couple rolls of duct tape and some plastic would be quite useful in Space!

Memo to Captain Obvious:
Duct tape has already saved the day for NASA on more than one occasion. [octanecreative.com]

~Philly

Using the earth as space shuttle

[GillBates0]

A third area of research is shielding. On Earth, radiation shielding is commonly provided by concrete or lead, but the costs of launching spacecraft are so high that this is not practical. One possible solution is a water tank, with the astronauts' living in a chamber in the middle. "It's just so expensive to put material into orbit that you'd like to use materials you have to bring anyway," Dr. Lowenstein said.

I propose a solution to this problem. The main problem with launching rockets/satellites is exactly that -- launching them...i.e. generating enough power to achieve escape velocity required to overcome the Earth's gravitation force.

An alternate approach, however, would be to use the planet itself as a spaceshuttle for the reasons below:

1. Capable of high velocity:
The Earth is capable of travelling at very high speeds (currently 18.55 miles/sec) without causing noticeable discomfort/grievances to the passengers (astronauts).

2. Strong shield against radiation: The Earth's atmosphere provides a strong shield to protect the astronauts from high amounts of radiation present in outer space.

3. Fuel efficient: The planet is extremely power efficient at converting the energy generated due to the gravitational interaction between planetary bodies into rotational/revolutionary motion.

4. Huge storage area: The proposed space shuttle provides a huge hold/storage area capable of holding large amounts of food/water and other resources. The storage areas are regenerative, in that they help degrade waste into material which can be used to reproduce useful material.

The only area which needs research is navigation--figuring out how to make the Earth go where we want. I think that's what NASA/etc should focus on now.

Radiation effect already known.

[Per Abrahamsen]

Statistically, 25% will be able to invisible at will, 25% will be transformed into big stone monsters, 25% will be able to turn into flames without getting hurt, and 26% will be able to stretch their body many times its normal length.

There are 1% uncertainty on these numbers.

Re:Have you ever flashy thinged me?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder where on the assistant they insert the special keys?

Isn't it obvious?

Obi Wan Bill Gates, you're our only hope

[strictnein]

Bill Gates truly is a very generous man (giving away billions through an orginization run by his father), and those that he has helped out I'm sure are very thankful he did help them... but it's time to focus on the big picture Bill!

Donate say, $20 - $30 billion to NASA (or hell, just donate a piddly $10 billion) for a mission to Mars. Hell, Microsoft has $40 billion in the bank, why not use some of that? Yeah, we'll have to have everything running Windows 2010, but as long as you don't require the computer to be named HAL (or BILL for that matter) I think everything will be ok.

Even though many contend you're evil, you'd be just slightly less evil in the eyes of every true geek out there.

Re:Comparing Price

[tomhudson]

Actually, George Bush is going to anounce a new space initiative - landing on the SUN.

Q: Won't it get too hot?
A: We'll land at night.

Back on-topic - snag a big ice/rock comet and use its' water for shielding.

Re:oh...

[gnu-generation-one]

"Who said it has to be less [than the speed of light]?"

Einstein did.

Extreme Animal Testing!

[GirTheRobot]

"In a new $34 million NASA laboratory here, part of Brookhaven National Laboratory, scientists are using subatomic particles accelerated to nearly the speed of light to slam into materials that could be used in a spaceship, and tissue samples and small animals. Using tools like PET and M.R.I. scans and DNA sequencing, they hope to shed light on ways that radiation damages biological tissue, and what can be done about it"

Today: NASA puts cuddly animals in particle accelerators...tomorrow: world destroyed by giant mutant rodents!!!
Why isn't PETA having a field day with this???

Re:If the Martians start flying into NY buildings.

[Anonymous Coward]

We prefer the term "Jovian," thank you.

Effects of $SOMETHING_FATAL in deep space...

[gumpish]

A New York Times article explores the possible effects of prolonged radiation exposure in deep space. Surprisingly, very little is known about the subject.

Not to be flippant, but I would imagine it would be similar to the effects of prolonged exposure to radiation on earth, i.e. not good.

Next they'll want to study the effects of being shot in the head... IN DEEP SPACE.

Obligatory Star Trek reference

[fiannaFailMan]

All they have to do is reconfigure the main deflector array to emit a polarised field of nanotachyons and redirect 20% of power from the EPS conduits to make sure that the ship maintains a stable warp field without compromising the counter-radiation shielding. Like, duh!

Basically, yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Your mirror would become a slab of molten silicon - you may observe this effect when someone tries to mirror a site targeted by /. with a machine that has insufficient resources.