Mars Explorers Face Huge Radiation Problem 283
astroengine writes "A radiation sensor inside NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows that even under the best-case scenario and behind shielding currently being designed for NASA's new deep-space capsule, future travelers will face a huge amount of radiation. The results, based on Curiosity's 253-day, 348-million-mile cruise to Mars, indicate an astronaut most likely would exceed the current U.S. lifetime radiation exposure limit during one round trip mission. "Even for the shortest of missions we are perilously close to the radiation career and health limits that we've established for our astronauts," NASA's chief medical officer Richard Williams told a National Academy of Sciences' medical committee on Thursday."
To Boldly Go... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And once you get there... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, you're already over your limit then.
Shielded enclosure (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think this is new - surely we have enough data to know the interplanetary radiation levels. In some of the old Mars mission designs there was a shielded "shelter" on the spacecraft that could be used during times of high radiation from solar activity. This of course adds weight - but if its located in the center of the spacecraft, or maybe shielded by fuel it might not be too bad.
On the martian surface it would seem fairly straightforward to make a covered trench. Most of the work could be done by robotic equipment before the manned mission arrived.
Putting people on mars isn't easy - if it were, much of the point would be lost.
Re:To Boldly Go... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a shame so much of NASA's human exploration has been cut back.
I wish I could agree, but I can't. I hate to say it because I grew up on the manned space program. As a kid I saw Neil Armstrong take the first steps on the moon (yes, that means I'm over 21) and thought what an historic moment it was. One of the things that we learned in those early days though is that people are fragile and manned space flight is horribly expensive. For a fraction of the price (10%?) you can send an unmanned mission. Frankly a lot of the support for manned space flight is that people want to see Buck Rogers, but almost all important scientific and practical work has been done by unmanned spacecraft. Please don't respond with examples of the work done in manned space flight. I know there's been some stuff, but it's tiny compared to the cost and what's been done unmanned. Also our ability to create robots (or whatever you want to call them) has increased dramatically since the early days.
Sure we could develop some cool tech for manned missions, but there are cheaper ways to do it. We could also create some cool robotic tech for unmanned missions. Before we send anybody to Mars, let's at least do an unmanned round trip.
Never send a man to do a robot's job.
Re:To Boldly Go... (Score:4, Insightful)
The things you say are true, but I still want to go to Mars. Even if being the first man on Mars means being the first man to die on Mars, that's totally fine.
We've gotta get off this rock eventually, let's go now.
Re:Hasn't Comic Book taught you anything. (Score:5, Insightful)
her "logic" is more or less akin to:
Actually I think this is Ann Coulter's logic: ... which generates lots of outrage among liberals ... which generates publicity ... which generates traffic and hits to her blogs and videos ... which generates income and talk show invitations
1. Say the most outrageous thing she can think of
2.
3.
4.
5.
6. Goto 1
Re:Okay (Score:5, Insightful)
With that kind of negativity, of couse you won't look for sensible options.
Like, using marsian weather to deposit the dirt for you, or noting that martian surface gravity is 1/3 that of earth, and that a "50lb bag of sand" will weigh only 16.6lbs on mars.
Don't let those little things trouble your already made up mind though. (Like how at that kind of mechanical strain reduction, glass fiber tethers can hold up loads that you need high grade steel cables for on earth, and all the engineering tricks this simple fact would let you get away with on mars, that you simply would be unable to do on earth in any of the other harsh environments you cited, especially the ocean floor, where you would need a habitat made of pure premium unobtanium to hold back the hundreds of tons of pressure per square meter of water overhead.)
If you approach your problems with the preconception of "Its hard, and can't be done, and isn't worth the time!", then it will never be done, even when conditions have changed, and it most certainly can be done.
The purpose of building a colony outside of the earth is NOT to solve word overpopulation. The purpose is to put our eggs in many baskets. Or did you learn nothing from the celybinsk(sp?) Meteor incident?
Life doesn't have to be fun, glamorous, easy, or desirable there. The reason for putting life there isn't to crow about accomplishments, to solve some "overpopulation problem", or due to some science fiction fantasy utopian ideology or dream. Those are all popular canards used by people who hold your viewpoint, but none of them are the reasons why we should build a martian colony.
So, why then? Ask Mr Sagan. The basic gist is that keeping all the humans in one basket (earth) is a recipie for extinction on the long term. We have had at least one mass extinction event on this world. (And likely many others.) If it has happened once, it can and eventually will happen again. Refusal to accept this as a rational reason to expand our holdings as a species in favor of petty indulgences and empty arguments about difficulty are not founded on reason. Or did the recent russian meteor event not provide enough impetus for you?
No-one is saying a martian colony will be anything but a torturous, inhospitable, and eternally drudge-infused effort to barely survive. We are saying that the adversities that would be present are not insurmountable, and that you only truly fail when you fail to try, and are offing suggestions on how those adversities could be effectively overcome.
Take your recent one: moving hundreds of tons of dirt on top of the habitat's dome of sandbags.
Here's an inexpensive way to do it, that makes use of the martian environment, rather than fighting it:
Mars has seasonal winds that blow the powder fine regolith all over the place, and routinely move huge dunes of the stuff around. You build a wind control wallaround the leeward sides of the dome, so that the dust carried by the winds gets dropped. Mars itself willdump the dirt you want if you are patient.
You can test this out in earth based deserts right now if you want. It's how lost cities in the sahara from antiquity get buried over.
When faced with a very daunting engineering challenge, don't work hard and go nowhere; work smart, and get shit done.
Re:Okay (Score:5, Insightful)
The "avoid mass extinction event" reasoning is basically rubbish. If we have the technology to survive on the surface of Mars --- no water, air, or food except what you bring and raise in your sealed habitats; open a window and you die --- then we can survive the very worst planetary extinction events right here on Earth. Giant meteor smashes into the planet; toxic dust cloud blocks out 50% of sunlight; ecosystems thrown into havoc; flaming ashy death raining down from the skies for decades? *Still* easier to survive than Mars. The engineering know-how to create sustainable human habitats on Mars could do much more on Earth, even in such a worst-case scenario.
All the recent Russian meteor did was remind me of how gigantic a panic is made over extremely rare events, causing very little harm, while millions of people are dying from much easier to fix problems. We can start worrying about once-in-a-million-years vague possibilities after we've solved the issue of murdering each other for profit on a daily basis.