It will affect our innards.
I’d note that the main technology we need to deal with this is affordable transportation to allow adequate shielding.
24 thoughts on “A New Space-Radiation Issue”
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It will affect our innards.
I’d note that the main technology we need to deal with this is affordable transportation to allow adequate shielding.
Comments are closed.
OT: A wide ranging interview with Bridenstine.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/nasas-jim-bridenstine-america-needs-to-be-first-even-in-space
On topic, the interview points to NASA working toward transportation optimized for each leg of a journey. That would help with shielding as it wouldn’t be a penalty for each launch from Earth’s surface.
Some argue that you must have damaged brain tissue to want to go into space in the first place….
Nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft would shorten travel times, but noooo… We can’t have that.
Humans will absolutely have nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft. To modify Heinlein’s quote, there is no guarantee that the crews will speak English.
It’s not clear to me nuclear will beat beam powered. The latter can have higher specific power, which is the important figure of merit for high thrust at high Isp.
Yes, it helps a lot to not have to carry your power supply along.
And laser beams can also cool the vehicle. Leave your refrigerator and radiators at home too.
Beam powered has some major advantages over short ranges. Long range, beam collimation and collector area become issues. But if you have a good transmitter at both ends of your trip you can get by without large power demands during the coast phase.
I want to see beam powered at sea level…. THAT would be a treat…
Paul D. writes:
And laser beams can also cool the vehicle. Leave your refrigerator and radiators at home too.
Do you have cites for this? I’d like to read up on that.
Speeding up means slowing down. Are there diminishing returns on shortening travel time?
Speeding up means slowing down.
Not sure what you mean by that. With continuous thrust, speeding up means speeding up.
It just means a bigger crater when you get to Mars.
Yeah, eventually you want to stop, enter into an orbit, or rendezvous. The faster you go makes these other things more challenging yes? It seems there are some limitations on how fast you want to travel based on what you want to do at your destination.
You accelerate half the distance, decelerate the second half. Fast trip.
Rand, I am shocked, shocked by your last remark.
I thought this was a family-friendly Web site?
Higher G’s?
Sure.
Another reason for Elon to aim for the Moon rather than Mars.
The radiation may fry your gonads but your wife can always have a Nordic baby. “One-third of all the sperm imported into the UK is of Danish origin.” Harold Godwinson is spinning in his grave.
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/3dx9nj/women-are-now-pillaging-sperm-banks-for-viking-babies (via Instapundit)
So space radiation will make your offspring you look and talk like this?
https://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Anders-Hejlsberg-Introducing-TypeScript
An alternative to shielding is faster transit times. E.g., Project Orion could have gone to Mars in a week with a day at each end of .3-g acceleration and deceleration.
Sam Dinkin Not could have, can.
Modest amounts of shielding can provide outsized protection if done correctly. The spacecraft is composed of mass (including descent propellant) which will be providing some shielding already. More importantly, the crew will already be carrying along water-bearing provisions such as water-containing food. Food turns into hermetically-sealed waste which provides the same level of shielding. If arranged correctly, the crew could spend their sedentary time (i.e. most of their time) positioned in their “pantry”. Since the internal radius of the pantry is small, the mass of the pantry shield could be modest. And, just 20 cm of water reduces the GCR mSv by about 1/2. So, we need to look at what we will already be taking along and how we can use that most efficiently. Pantry shielding with an internal volume of 3 x 2 x 1 meters per crew member and 50 cm thick shielding means that a crew of eight would require 7.8 tonnes of provisions / shielding. Studies of the type in this report typically describe the effects of radiation if there was no shielding whatsoever. This is unrealistic and so, in a way, misleading. We shouldn’t make policy decisions upon such studies.