Mars-Bound Probe Serves As Radiation Guinea Pig

sighted writes "This week's huge solar storm will benefit future astronauts, thanks to the rover Curiosity, now on its way to Mars. The rover is equipped with an instrument that measures the radiation exposure that could affect a human astronaut en route to the Red Planet. Scientists are just starting to pore over the data from the blast of particles. Don't worry about the poor robotic geologist, though: 'No harmful effects to the Mars Science Laboratory have been detected from this solar event,' says NASA."

Any long term trip in space

[koan]

Needs a lot of water, if you were to locate the water in between hull layers it acts as quite a nice radiation shield.

And perhaps, though I'm not certain and currently feeling lazy, a micro meteorite shield as well.

Re:D.O.A.

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Agreed. Someday, people will simply wake up to the fact that we evolved to be here, and anything outside of our thin biospheric shell is simply not "a really good idea". There's nothing wrong with being trapped on earth *if you take care of the place*.

We're not going to Mars. Period. Get over it. At the rate we're going we'll be lucky to feed ourselves by 2025...