Clark Lindsey has some thoughts on the myths about radiation in space. I should note that this is one of the more popular lunatic (and I use that phrase in its most pejorative sense) theories about why we never went to the moon.

Many years ago I read a goofy suggestion about using lead codpieces out in space. Having already learned about secondary radiation, the idea of wearing a lead codpiece created unpleasant images of huge cascades of tiny particles ripping through sensitive areas.

Robert Zubrin's regular stump-speech does a nice job of putting this issue to rest, in my opinion. First, use your food and water as a shield. Then, use the human processed food and water as a shield. Case closed.

Try telling that to Ben Grimm.

[sigh]

The situation is not as extreme as the Scientific American article implies (I haven't read the Discover article yet). But it also isn't as simple as either Lindsay, Bill White, or the all-knowing Bob Zubrin imply either. (It probably goes without saying that nothing is as easy as Zubrin implies.)

The biggest problem is that there is substantial uncertainty about a lot of parts of the equation, such as the effects of radiation on humans, the effects of radiation on humans in a microgravity environment, the degree and type of radiation that may be encountered, and threat prediction capabilities.

Many of these individual factors can be improved if attention is devoted to them. However, if that attention is _not_ devoted to them (i.e. funding things like life sciences research, solar storm modeling, and even dedicated space instruments to do things like measure the radiation environment on the surface of the moon), then the error bars in the equation are really big. Now some people simplistically claim that you simply solve the problem by throwing a huge amount of mass up there and hiding inside it, but if there is a dedicated research effort, you may not _have_ to throw up all of that mass. You might be able to better design your spacecraft, better predict radiation threats such as solar storms, and better ameliorate the effects on living organisms.

There's a smart way to do this, and it isn't screaming that the sky is falling, nor is it hand-waving the issue aside.

All the more reason for a long, shielded soak at Earth/Moon L1 in parallel with testing out long-duration hardware.

As for long-term research into the underlying phenomena, I'm skeptical about its ability to answer enough questions to make people happy.

We need to avoid the "catch-22" that says we shouldn't go beyond LEO until we do the research but since we can only do this research by going beyond LEO maybe we need to spend billions and billions on studies before we do anything at all.

The only way I see to accomplish the needed research is to go out there and do something else that is either useful or interesting while simultanesously executing the most thorough research possible and protecting our astronauts to the very best of our current capabilities.

For example, if this image is remotely accurate, what about pushing the crew hab down in between the H2 tanks? Giant tanks of hydrogen will shield the crew as well as water, if not better. Also, surrounding the crew hab with the fuel tanks may allow for a much shorter ladder for climbing out on the lunar surface.