Slashdot Mirror
Cosmic Rays Could Kill Astronauts Visiting Mars
jvchamary writes "Given the recent stream of reports of 10th planets and the relative success of the NASA Discovery mission, it might again be time to get excited at the prospect of visiting the Red Planet. Unfortunately, New Scientist reports that Astronauts traveling to Mars would be exposed to so much cosmic radiation that 10% would die of cancer."
Not only is it cancer, it's space cancer. That's gotta be like 10 times worse ;)
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Dangers in Space!
Film at 11!
Use some lead plating in those suits. That'll protect 'em! ;-)
Also, 25% will become stretchy, 25% will turn invisible, 25% will burst into flames, and 25% will have their skin replaced by an orangey rock-like substance!
Ceci n'est pas un post.
We only send nine :)
#include ".signature"
So how would this be a limiting factor for a government that still subsidizes tobacco farmers? What if we only sent smokers? TFA article says that 10% would get fatal cancer sometime in their lives. Really, how is this different from those who self select themselves for a much increased risk of cancer through smoking?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Can we not desing the spacecraft and the spacesuits to block radiation? Such things exist here on Earth. Is cosmic radiation different than radiation here on earth?
It worked for the Fantastic Four.
- what's the problem.
We've known this for quite a while.
I think they'd also have to go through the Van Allen radiation belts which could also be a concern. Conspiracy theorists have argued that space travel to the moon was impossible because the Van Allen radiation would kill or incapacitate an astronaut who made the trip. In practice, even at the peak of the belts, one could live for several months without receiving a lethal dose.
Apollo had timed things however to make it accross while radiation was at a minimum. However, if they'd be on such a long trip -- timing will have to be a lot more precise.
Short of hauling up lead plates, I don't know what they'll do.
"It's it's worth the price."
However, the remaining 90% would get the ability to turn invisible, an orange rocky carapace, self-immolation at will, or very stretchy limbs.
-carl
. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
...wear their tinfoil hats.
I'd be willing to take a 10% risk of cancer later in my life in order to see mars. Hell i'd take a 10% chance of not surviving the trip home.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
2.2 Sieverts is 220 rems. that's like 8-10 times previous estimates. And you've got to wonder about quotes like this:
Others suggest more radical solutions might be needed. "Radiation exposure is certainly one of the major problems facing future interplanetary space travellers," says Murdoch Baxter, founding editor of the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity. "Unless we can develop instantaneous time and space transfer technologies like Dr Who's TARDIS."
Yes, but this obscures a far more important percentage: how many astronauts will come home with incredible super powers?!
Wasn't mini-magnetospheric plasma propulsion supposed to offer robust shielding, in addition to efficient travel?
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Let's never leave our little shielded planet because we might get cancer!
Seriously, I'm sure that there are thousands of people who would line up, despite that 10% chance of a disease that some of them will get anyway. I would.
Go to Mars, keep working on cancer cure. Everybody wins.:-)
picpix image polls. create - share - vote. fun!
So even if they cannot solve the cosmic radiation problem entirely, there is a possibility that could get them safely to Mars and back. Of course first we'd need that Moon base I've been reading about in SF stories written as far back as forever...
This is really important for those Martian paintball games.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Exposed to cosmic radiation during a space mission, austronauts are torn apart and reformed atom-by-atom. Soon after they return to Earth, they each manifest fantastic superpowers. Some can stretch their bodies to inhuman lengths; Others can become invisible and create force fields; still others can ignite their bodies into living flame and soar through the air; and an unlucky few's human features are erased - now with the rocky form of a super-strong, invulnerable 'thing'.
Hope they never make a movie about it - it would be terrible.
My pics.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
What percentage of earth-bound humans die of cancer?
"Cancer deaths accounted for 23 percent of all deaths" according to http://www.cancure.org/statistics.htm
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
We've known about this risk for years. What's so special about this? The fact that scientists have quantified it more accurately?
Seriously. Send healthy older astronauts. Wouldn't their slower metabolism mean that they may never suffer any ill effects from the radiation?
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Space is dangerous?!? Wha??!!! Wow.. We better not go there then! RUN AWAY! Someone might die! *gasp* *shock* Horror!!!!!!1111one!
I think any first travelers to Mars would have far more impressive ways to die than a 10% chance of radiation damage. The ship could explode, they could run out of food, they could hit any of the various bits of rock out there, they could get abducted by the aliens that live on the other side of the moon, they could slip and fall while getting out the shower cracking their skulls open, etc.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
> ...exposed to so much cosmic radiation that 10% would die of cancer.
And what's the percentage that would die of cancer anyways? I'm guessing about 10%.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Seriously, though, does anyone know just how much material is needed to block these rays? Specifically, if a space habitat were constructed (along the lines of an O'Neill cylinder, for instance), how many meters of rock would we require on the outer surface to make the place long-term habitable?
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
>>> The study estimated that individual doses would end up being very high, at 2.26 sieverts.
Interesting. However, that this is 2.26 sieverts for the total mission. Usually, you get nausea, etc as part of the acute radiation syndrome, assuming that you are getting those in a few hours.
Don't try to use the force. Do or do not, there is no try.
Correct me if my thinking is wrong, but what if we just send 11 astronauts? Then we'll still have a full crew of 10...
Just make sure Val Kilmer is the 10th member that draws the short straw for the window seat.
So people can smoke cigarettes and have a better chance of getting cancer than going to mars.. You smoke your cigs and ill get mars cancer. At least ill be doing something awesome
If they're talking about current chemical propulsion technologies, then yes, they'll be out there for the better part of a year. If we get dig out nuclear propulsion technology that's already been developed, such as NERVA, and other things such as gas core nuclear rockets, it's simple to cut the trip down to weeks while simultaneously packing dozens of tons of extra shielding.
Other things that could kill astronauts visiting mars:
-cosmic space rocks
-cosmic lack of oxygen
-cosmic freezing
-cosmic burning
-cosmic vacuum
-cosmic alien species
-cosmic cowboy neil
hey! its a dangerous universe!
Starsucks
Firstly, we need nuclear power. Kind of a "fight fire with fire" approach.
For mars habitation, build a base underground?
For the journey, build the spacecraft out of very, very thick material? Not some exotic material, just a thick layer of rock would suffice, yes?
use our nuclear generators to create a massive magnetic field around the spacecraft.
It must be possible to overcome these problems. After all, we are traveling on a spaceship right now, and it's doing a pretty good job of shielding us from radiation.
So, out of 10 astronauts, one dies of cancer that he or she wouldn't have gotten had she or she stayed at home.
For each astronaut, there's a 90% chance of suffering no ill effects from the increased radiation exposure. (That is, they'll get to die of a heart attack, stroke, of an injury after a fall, in an auto wreck, or of a cancer they were going to get anyway).
For a crew of six, there's about a 50% probability (that is, 0.9^6) that one of them will die of cancer. And there'll really be no easy way to know whether the one unlucky sonofabitch got his cancer from the trip, or he was just an... unlucky sonofabitch.
If we're talking about a trip with a 6-month stay, those are pretty good odds.
If we're talking about permanent colonization - considering that living on a planet where the ambient temperature is too low to support most life, and the atmosphere's unbreathable by humans, and where the only food you'll get is what you can grow in carefully-maintained greenhouses - it seems to me that there are plenty of nasty ways to die on Mars that don't involve a 10% increase in the odds that I'll get cancer.
So either way - it sounds like a great adventure, with better odds of living a long and happy life than anyone on the Nina, Pinta, or Santa Maria ever had. I'll fly tomorrow. Who's with me?
Just start recruiting chain-smokers and/or people from Memphis, TN into the astronaut program. Provide the smokers with nicotine inhalers for the duration of the mission and all will be well. Their chances of dying prematurely are astronomically greater than your average person, as it is. The latter group already faces 10% increase in the chance of dying just walking outside to get the paper.
(Hey, I lived there for 3 years and most people would choose to risk terminal cancer than stay)
In TFA
loss of fertility and genetic defects in their children
They could always get their eggs/sperm sampled and frozen before the trip.
And what ever you do DON'T LET DOVES LOOSE. It could start a War!!
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
"But women are always in more danger than men because they live longer and are more susceptible to breast and ovarian cancers."
Hm. Women are more susceptible to ovarian cancer. Who would have thought?
...turns out that you can't even get to the water!
BTM
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
Astronauts traveling to Mars would be exposed to so much radiation that 10% would die of cancer.
For once I'm glad I have a tinfoil hat!
(cue rimshot)
I think the key point here is that we should send AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE to Mars. Radiation will slowly kill off the weaker ones and we will develop a radiation-proof super-race. Dibs on a window seat.
sig
Just seems like our concept of constructing space ships, and the logistics change. Not that long space travel will not be possible.
;-)
We need methods to get tonnage of materials into space, that's all.
When that gets solved, we'll get another article on lead poisening and space travel
-Nuke the moon
Yes there is space rad. And it sucks, alot. But I'd like to belive that we have enough common sense to figure out how to bring this to a minimum. I'm preety sure NASA knows about this magical radiation - and took it into account when making their plans to go take a sunday stroll to the moon or mars.
Besides - the two best sources of technological improvement: war & space travel. Maybe they'll invent the anti-cancer pill finally.
snowulf.com
Its easier to wear lead-shoelding on Mars because the force of gravity is lower.
The article started out somewhat on the silly side with a quote from Keran O'Brien: "I do not see how the problem of this hostile radiation environment can be easily overcome in the future." Whoever said it was going to be easy?
Here's Kennedy on the matter: "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard..."
The article ended on a completely ridiculous note:
There have been extremely impressive strides made in theoretical particle physics recently. I think it is too soon to discount the idea of interplanetary travel.
You got any karma man? I really neeed it. Just a little hit! Come on!
Wouldn't a rear mounted solar sail both a) help get them there faster and b) reflect substantial amounts of radiation (since that's how it works)?
:T:R:A:N:S:
He's old...
Yeah, right.
The last time I checked, the FAA didn't really have any responsibilities related to space travel (outside of regulating commercial space travel, which up 'till now is pretty non-existant). They gave over their space "division" as it were to NASA in 1958. What's their interest in doing a study like this?
Send off death-row inmates or other criminals. Next thing you know, there'll be a whole colony with weird maps and funky accents.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Tang and the cure for Cancer...what the Space Program is all about!
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
"Astronauts traveling to Mars would be exposed to so much cosmic radiation that 10% would die of cancer." And a 90% chance of super powers.
What is the percentage of people here on earth that die from cancer. If its anything close to 10%, then this is not really a risk, more of a fact of life.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
12345
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
I know you're joking, but I think a number of slashdot readers are thinking, "yeah, why can't they just shield them".
I'm not sure I see the point of even going to Mars in the first place; like Kennedy's moon trip, going to Mars will get us nothing. Things are just too impractical to get anything useful done on either planet. The futurists all argue, "well, SOME day it'll be practical". Wasn't this the same group that predicted we'd have, ten years ago, flying cars, transporters, faster than light travel, etc?
Please help metamoderate.
Cosmic rays are just atomic nuclei, and thus positively charged. Why not use a strong magnetic field to deflect them?
Cosmic rays from the sun?
:)
Why don't they just go at night?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
This is just another reason to make it a one way mission and just colonize the place. A) If there is alien life on Mars, the dumbest thing to do is bring it back to Earth. Until we've cured all infectious disease on this planet, why bring back something from another for which there is no cure. It may not be as EASY as the Andromeda Strain. B) If you're going to go, a round trip will only double the exposure to cosmic rays. Go once, go well and be first to land and die on mars. Remember you get to keep what you kill ( or is vice versa...) C) Use older astronauts. These guys are going to die sooner anyhow. Let them go out with glory (not a blaze) as the founders of a colony and explorers. Personally, I'd rather die of cancer on Mars as an explorer than a geriatric patient in Boca Raton.
That's quite an improvement, seeing as we all already have a roughly 1 in 7 chance of dying of cancer!
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Most slashdoters need SPF 1000 for being outdoors for 5 minutes anyways.
The bigger problem is the damaged fertility - especially when you consider that any astronaut who goes to Mars would be quite a babe magnet when he got back...
I quit!
That's the president, alright.
"But women are always in more danger than men because they live longer and are more susceptible to breast and ovarian cancers."
Could have read:
"But women are always in more danger than men because they live longer and are more susceptible to breast and 100% more susceptible to ovarian cancers."
Nuke Gay Whales for Jesus.
Obviously no one at Nasa reads ./ if they did, well I'm sure they would know the easy solution to cosmic Ray bombardment.
Which is of course, a tin foil hat, tin foil covering all electrical appliances, tin foil on the windows of the shuttle?
Maybe some one should send them a note before they have to hassle putting up the foil while space walking.
Permanent settlers, while having a significanly shorter life expectancy, would also undergo slightly excelerated evolution :)
Seriously though, what about the first europeans to the Americas. They were at least as likely to dye from malnutrition during the trip, not to mention all the hardships they faced when they got there. That is what it means to be a pioneer - to take risks and pave the way so others after you can go more safely.
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cause_of_death , in US more than 25% of deaths are caused by cancer. So 10% sounds like an improvement? I think the guys at "New Scientist" messed up some statistical data.
Yours sincerely,
Peter
In fact, many things that don't have to do with Mars have become problems, because Mars has been leaching dollars from other programs. So, for example, the Hubble Space Telescope, the single most scientifically valuable instrument in space, has become too expensive to repair, because Mars is getting the bucks.
And at the end of the Bush years, when we know how many hundred billion a Mars mission will cost, and we know how many extra trillion we are in debt, Mars will be cancelled. But not before it's destroyed Hubble and probably a bunch of other science projects. But who cares, they'll be teaching 'intelligent design' in high school as if it were a scientific theory, so we'll have much worse problems than the setbacks in space science.
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
Was this not expected as not all planets are the same?
Go to the w3.org and put Slashdot.org through the validator.
The cancer rate in men is nearly 50% and in women it's over 40%. Within 50 years cancer will be controllable like diabetes.
The trip to Mars radiation doesn't seem insurmountable.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Whether it's hostile indigenous personnel, weird diseases, dangerous travel methods, or even lunatic fellow crew members, going to far away new places has always been dangerous. And there have always been explorers willing to risk life & limb (and someone else's money) to do it.
What's with the penchant for making it safe and sanitary? Those should be long-term engineering goals, not short term requirements for pursuing exploration. If it always had to be safe and comfortable, Lewis & Clark would have waited for the invention of the motorhome.
(The irony being, that, IIRC the only crew member to perish on L&C's trip died of appendicitis, a then-incurable ailment.)
Cancer won't be a problem because they will have all been destroyed due to the lludium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator wielded by Marvin the Martian.
On Soviet Mars, Martians kill cancer.
duh!
Well they should be OK, as long as they use a hands-free device with their cell phones.
There's been webchatter regarding genetically engineering the astronauts to be radiation resistant using DNA from Deinococcus Radiodurans.
Cheaper than sheilding if they don't get sick and die.
Really would be nice to use it to save my as from somehting real rather than just keeping the aliens(1) fron listening into my head.
1) They're not illegal aliens until after they abduct me.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I've seen in a lot of sci-fi the idea of a radiation bunker. Basically, a smaller part of the living quarters in the middle of the ship that HAS thicker shielding. The crew would retreat there during flares and times of intense radiation, and then come back into the normal ship when things have calmed down again.
That would probably significantly reduce the cancer number, since I get the impression that space radiation is pretty variable.
Or we could do the easy thing and not be terrified of nuclear rockets, and get the astronauts there in and back in a month or two.
Again, I'm reminded of stories of voyages of discovery from 200 years ago. The crew sailing with Captain James Cook actually fared better than most, according to Wikipedia:
At that point in the voyage, Cook had lost no men to scurvy, a remarkable and unheard-of achievement in 18th century sea-faring. He forced his men to eat such foods as citrus fruits and sauerkraut -- under punishment of flogging if they did not comply -- although no one yet understood why these foods prevented scurvy. Unfortunately, he sailed on for Batavia, the capital of the Dutch East Indies, to put in for repairs. Batavia was known for its outbreaks of malaria, and, before they returned home in 1771, many in Cook's crew would succumb to the disease, including the Tahitian Tupaia, Banks's secretary Herman Spöring, astronomer Charles Green, and the illustrator Sydney Parkinson.
Would it be that much worse to be afflicted with cancer in the 2000's than with malaria in the 1700s? At least we have morphine now.
The suggestion that brain ailments might afflict spacefaring explorers strikes a familiar chord as well:
Cook returned to Hawaii in 1779. On February 14 at Kealakekua Bay, some Hawaiians stole one of Cook's small boats. Normally, as thefts were quite common in Tahiti and the other islands, he would have taken hostages until the stolen articles were returned. However, his stomach ailment and increasingly irrational behaviour led to an altercation with a large crowd of Hawaiians gathered on the beach. In the ensuing skirmish, shots were fired at the Hawaiians and Cook was speared to death.
Another factor to keep in mind is the motivation of the sailors. For one thing, conditions at home didn't offer much better chance at longevity. But perhaps more importantly, Captain Cook believed in the medicinal value of large quantities of beer:
The custom of allowing British seamen the regular use of fermented liquor is an old one. Ale was a standard article of the sea ration as early as the fourteenth century. By the late eighteenth century, beer was considered to be at once a food (a staple beverage and essential part of the sea diet), a luxury (helping to ameliorate the hardship and irregularity of sea life) and a medicine (conducive to health at sea).
It sounds like we won't be exploring Mars until we have a population of would-be explorers that is 1) worse off here than in space, 2) led by a captain with a penchant for the lash, and 3) drunk off their arse.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
...they got hit by cosmic rays;
:O
and their forms were changed forever / in some most fantastic ways
FANTASTIC FOUR!
Sorry, couldn't resist.
So those 90% of surviving astronauts will be radiation-hardened humans.
A couple of centuries of travelling and we'll have a new space faring race.
These "scientists" need to watch some B-rated sci-fi movie sequels.
Impotent men on Mars are less of a threat to the extinction of humanity later on than some virile horny astronaut hotties coming back and spreading their Martin/Species seed on a post-mission bender.
IronChefMorimoto
This is just another reason why we need to invest in advanced propulsion systems that could get us to Mars in a couple of weeks instead of years.
Unfortunately, we are wasting most of NASA's resources on an outdated Space Shittle and an useless space station. Until we start prioritizing a steady, sustainable manned space program over this dog and pony show the shuttle and ISS represent, we are going to be stuck here on Earth.
The reason for all that radiation is not the sun, its where the Armies of the world do there so called undetectable nuclear testing!
First, how much of this radiation would be blocked by the metal the spacecraft is made out of? I'm sure they considered this when making this report. Secondly, is there any possible way to generate an artificial "magnetosphere" like the Earth has, to protect people near it from this radiation?
Space is dangerous, we already knew that.
But what are we going to gain by going there? Spending more money than I can ever imagine just to say we got there before China?
For the same amount of money, we can send fleets of robots to mars who can do much more, better science. Isn't tht the point of exploration? To learn things that we didn't know before?
But until we get a much better, cheaper way to get to LEO and beyond, worrying about getting to Mars is just pointless.
Unfortunately, no one (who matters) will listen, and the only way NASA will have the funds to do that kind of research is by setting a silly, chest-thumping-related goal like being the first to play golf on the Red Planet.
If we can drop this all over the place, whats the big deal with some extra radiation for explorers?
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
The 10% increase in your chance of catching a bad case of cancer may be daunting. However, previous research has also shown exposure to cosmic rays gives you a 25% chance of gaining the ability to create invisible force fields. I would think most people would hop on that chance. Just think, no more dirty dishes to clean!
Sounds like it's time to invent some actual energy shields. Maybe create a magnetic field by running electric current through some copper powered by a nuclear reactor or something. Yeah, with enough power you should be able to shield yourself pretty good. Just like Mother Earth!
If induced hibernation is on the horizon, then couldn't we solve the problem by merely shielding human-sized compartments, instead of the entire spacecraft? We don't need the astronauts to pilot the thing anyway.
The prestigious Sydney Morning Herald confirms that the US already has "anti-gravity technology".
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
nothing to worry about, as we all know Marvin will have a gadget to cure cancer.
"Oh, dear. Now I suppose I shall have to use force."
[optikshell.com] My weblog / gathering of neat (read geek) stuff.
We could loan the astronauts our tinfoil hats...
When you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness. So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
end of message.
I have better than 50% chance of living forever! Thanks for the link!
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
A "documentary" claiming to have proof the US faked the manned mission to the moon.
In a certain scene a Russian working in the Russian space program explained;
"We never went to the moon because of the radiation... No human would've survived that".
Seems like the US is about to fake a manned mission to Mars this time :P
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
10% of humans in planet Earth will get cancer sometime in their lives
...for the Unrated Version(tm) that reveals that the Invisible Woman was, in fact, simply a chick that became super-sexy thanks to the rays, but was edited out due to sustained nudity.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
" This is just another reason to make it a one way mission and just colonize the place."
Without a couple of trips and a sample-return mission we won't know enough about what conditions are like there to mount a colonisation effort.
"A) If there is alien life on Mars, the dumbest thing to do is bring it back to Earth."
Well yeah, apart from the astronomically (literally) unlikely chance that anything that's evolved from first principles on an entirely alien planet would be able to survive in our ecosystem, let alone invade our bodies and fend off our immune systems long enough to reproduce, make us sick and spread.
"B) If you're going to go, a round trip will only double the exposure to cosmic rays. Go once, go well and be first to land and die on mars."
Indeed. Very soon after landing, in fact, if we don't know enough about the conditions to set up a viable biosphere.
"C) Use older astronauts. These guys are going to die sooner anyhow. Let them go out with glory (not a blaze) as the founders of a colony and explorers."
This is a possibility, but as I understand it as you get older your genetic integrity breaks down, and you're more likely to get cancer, not less. Plus, of course, the extreme physical rigour and high level of fitness necessary to get into space, land on Mars and survive in a hostile alien environment for an unspecified time. All in all space exploration looks more like a young person's game, cancer-risk notwithstanding.
Anyway, who's seriously worried about this? 10% chance of contracting cancer you might have got anyway, vs. the chance of being the first man on Mars? I wouldn't even stop to pack...
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
Basically this study is saying that with our current technology, it would be difficult to go to Mars or anywhere beyond. That itself wouldn't be so bad if the tone of the article made it sound impossible to do at all.
With 1960 technology it wouldn't have been possible to go to the moon. But with 1969 technology, it sure was. In 2005, we might lack radiation shielding that makes interplanetary distances hard to traverse without killing you 50 years from now. But in 2015, it might very well be easy to have lightweight material shield you adequately.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Let's send N'Sync and see what happens.
"come on, you apes - you want to live forever?"
--Lt. Razak
http://www.freemars.org/studies/magshield/
If that is the case, why not either create space suits and/or ships and structures designed like Faraday cages?
I'm sure to be missing something...others who know more please comment on this.
Didn't Interplay solve the radiation problem long ago with RadAway?
If they are going to go to Mars, they'll have to deal with this issue. And much like some of the other advances we've gained out of the space program I wonder if they are going to try and minimize the damage done to the human body by cancer. In other words, wouldn't be refreshing to have the cure of cancer come from NASA?
" Yesterday upon the stair I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today. I wish that man would go away."
There are risks with everything. Learn to live with them.
I'm more worried about that supposed "10% of the human genome" problem that turns people into hideous demons. We should send in the rock first, preferably with a BFG.
Nasa spent billions making a pen capable of writing in space. The Russians just use a pencil.
Let China and others take the lead.
Being an American I can only tell you that America is no longer the Home of the Free and Land of the Brave.
It's the Home of Litigious Bastards and Land of the Soccer Mom.
"What? People might die in the name of furthering mankind?!?!?
This will not stand!" They now say.
Since when must everything be perfect and perfectly regulated?
And just when was it that America lost her back-bone and pioneering spirit? When was it that we forgot what it means to SACRIFICE?
Americas turn at the worlds wheel is about over.
And China is primed and ready.
Good luck.
Sun Rays Could Kill Me Visiting Outside. More at 11.
...that only men will go? I'll get all the hot Martian babes while you stay in your boring cancer-free (you hope) basement.:-)
picpix image polls. create - share - vote. fun!
I don't want to get into a particle vs wave debate, but at the energy level of gamma rays (photon-like particles), I don't think you have to worry about changing their momentum much so they "bounce" with a some weak lead shielding resulting in a ping-pong game...
If the gamma photon gets through the lead (and it usually's got lot of momentum/energy), it'll get to the person and have some probablity of hitting one of the atoms in the person (resulting in the atom decaying and causing ionizing radiation damage). Since a person is usually thicker than the shield, the probability of hitting an atom in the person's body is much higher than hitting an atom in the lead shield. For alpha and beta radiation, they are charged and also usually have lower energy/momentum and as you mentioned can be mostly stopped with thin layers of material...
And cosmic rays (which mostly originate outside the solar system, but some come from the sun) are about 10-1000x more energetic than typical gamma rays (since both cosmic and gamma rays are techically photons they are only distinguished by energy level anyhow, a rose is a rose).
As for slowing down these highly energetic photons, well, there's not much a lead plate in a space-suit (or in a space-ship) is gonna do about that. Particles with that much energy/momentum aren't easy to stop with a few inches of any material, but if a "peice of radiation decided to stop", the photon would have zero rest mass and you wouldn't notice it (except for the residual path of damage it made in the attempt to stop)...
For current astronauts "near" earth, they of course have this big shield that protects us from about 1/2 of this radiation (the technical name of the shield is called earth), for someone far away from a big planetary body to shield them, they'll get at least a double dose of cosmic rays. For those of us on earth we get protection from both the earth on one side and atmosphere on the other, but of course mars's atmosphere is thinner (and doesn't have any ozone, although there may be some other thing there that helps)...
Clearly expidited ozone depletion is the answer to this question. Right now, we consider a 10% risk of cancer to be too high. But if we worked hard to deplete the ozone layer and banned all sun block we'd all become quite comfortable w/ a 10% cancer rate. Let's bring back those cloraflorawhatsinthisherespraycans.
That reaching the moon couldn't be done because of cosmic radiation. Most of this science is hypothesis with little to no testing. It's similar to Einstein's theory of relativity, there's no way to really prove it currently but it's accepted.
The fact is I'm sure the people at Nasa know EXACTLY what these guys know if not already have a plan about it. Hell we won't even be attempting a mars trip til we have new shuttles (the next moon launch will be in the next couple of years but while Bush WANTS to go to mars after that the current shuttles will be dismantled long before that, and we'll see what shuttle they bring out after that.
I say we let Nasa continue their work and stop second guessing them at every avenue or even putting up with people who act like they know more.
Can you imagine the logistics of sending people that far? They'd need entertainment, so would have a ship fully loaded with tunes and films. There'll be hell to pay if they're DRM'ed copies and suddenly stop working because someone didn't pay the bill - i'd give them 5 years on Mars before they come back and set fire to Earth, starting with Microsoft, because they had to sit on a spaceship with no tunes. Brilliant.
I always wondered why the Cure for Cancer wonder would increase the success of your travel to Alpha Centauri by 50%. Now I know.
if you gave an example of each, instead of just smearing the guy.
Just blow up the sun... Get rid of it. Everybody should know that No Sun = No cosmic radiation! Honestly, how hard could it be?
Once you got to Mars, your body would have lost significant amounts of bone mass. something like 15-20% per year in low gravity enviroments.
By the time you are on your way back after hanging around Mars for a while, your muuscle would snap your bones.Don't believe me? Check on the russians that spend a year or so on MIR, their bone density is permanently degraded.
The Mars mission is not feasible until medicine develops a way to stop bone loss in zero g.
"Nimis exaltatus rex sedet in vertice - caveat ruinam!"
to fit 10% additional crew to compensate.
I was with you until you suggested playing golf on Mars... and then I knew I had a purpose in life.
it all depends on what you think radiation will do.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I've come to regard The New Scientist as the Weekly World News of scientific publications. I don't know how many times they've gone and overthrown some foundational tenet of science on the word of some crackpot, or turned some minor study that basically confirms some already-known fact into a budding scientific revolution.
If their next issue claimed that water was wet, I'd be skeptical. So it wouldn't surprise me at all if they've grossly exaggerated this study's importance, certainty, or novelty (my guess: all three).
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
women... are more susceptible to breast and ovarian cancers.
You don't say. It never ceases to amaze me what interesting tidbits modern science reveals in these studies.
Stan Lee is the first to say he loves science, but never understood it. Thus was born strange powers from radioactive spiders, gamma rays, and cosmic rays. A fairly nifty comicbook-verse explanation of why all the various radation didn't kill its subjects was suggested in Earth X by Alex Ross, Jim Krueger, and John Paul Leon.
A ton of technology came from the space race
Yeah, if it weren't for the bravery and heroisim of the early astronaughts, we wouldn't have TANG(tm) INSTANT BREAKFAST DRINK today.
I for one applaude their efforts.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Is that the new politcally correct term for Martians bent on destroying our cosmonauts? I always preferred the term Native Martianians.
The most insightful post of the bunch.
The pussification of America
WTF, 10%? How many explorers died discovering this planet? I'll go, strap some roman candles to my arse, and I'll wave bye bye. At least I could say that I died doing something instead of hand wringing about how "dangerous" it is.
In the immortal words of Proximo Ultimately, we're all dead men. Sadly, we cannot choose how but, what we can decide is how we meet that end, in order that we are remembered, as men.
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
This kind of pisses me off. What happened to the "can do" attitude of NASA? That was what was great about NASA is that they would laugh at problems like this and find ways to overcome them. The guy says, "I do not see how the problem of this hostile radiation environment can be easily overcome in the future,". When has any problem encountered is the field of space travel and exploration been easily overcome?
Cosmic radiation isn't that bad, look at me...
See here's the thing: everyone dies eventually of something. If the price of being one of the first men on Mars is terminal cancer, well, so what? I'm 100% likely to die ANYWAY. What difference does it make if I die from cancer (SPACE cancer, at that) or if I die from a stroke or heart attack? I'm just as dead, right?
So sign me up. I'm ready to go to Mars.
Besides, this trip isn't for a few years yet. I'm sure they'll devise ways of minimising the danger. Heck, TFA mentions several, and they're all ones I was thinking of myself, and I am NOT a physicist or rocket scientist by anyone's definition.
Yep. Sign me up. I'm ready to go.
I was under the impression that astronaut suits were already radiation-shielded. Doesn't the moon receive cosmic radiation too?
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Time to start smoking, eat junk, and pretty much live it up!
;-)
Show your bosses you aren't affraid of a lil' cancer, that'll put you ahead in the Mars queue!
You can't take the sky from me...
Just have gills transplanted. And with gills, you won't need lungs anymore. Like down on table. I take lungs now, gills come next week.
(Apologies to Fry.)
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Additionally when I amass enough monkeys I can start working on some Shakespeare knockoffs, or a new secure version of Windows - which ever comes first.
"on a 2.7-year return trip to Mars, including a stay of more than a year on the planet. "
This article is assuming a stay of 1.7 years in open space - More than 18 months. If I stand outside on Earth for 18 months unprotected, I'll die of cancer too.
What sort of nonsense is this? 9 month one way trip?? Ridiculous.
kulakovich
A few years after we first go to Mars, Fox will probably cite this report in their special "Did We Really Land on Mars?"
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Cosmic radiation wouldn't be at the top of the list of my worries, what with all the strange artifacts they've been finding on Mars and the noises heard at the lower levels of the complex...
The added mass of lead shielding is where the problem lies. (F/m)=a, remember?
With so many ppl on
As the article notes, the main problem with doing that is that rockets can only carry a very limited amount of mass into orbit.
As one of Slashdot's resident space elevator geeks, I feel compelled to point out that with a space elevator this wouldn't be a problem... we could economically upload as much mass as we needed to GEO. Want a Mars ship the size of a football stadium? No problem!
I don't think manned space exploration is ever going to be commonplace if we have to rely on the limited capabilities of rockets to get material into orbit.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Another solution to the cancer risk is to send older astronauts. The older you get, the lower the risk that a cancer is going to significantly shorten your life. That is why the treatment for slow growing prostate cancers is often to do nothing. Someone in their 50s, in good shape, would be up to the rigors, but not going to (or at least shouldn't) feel cheated when cancer strikes 15 years later.
Feed the astronauts exclusively on heavy water or good old deuterium oxide. Each cell in their body would then be shielded inside and out.
True, after a few days all their hair would fall out and they would have to be fed intravenously, but that's a small price to pay for exploration.
I suppose if we go to Mars someone will have to invent a new breakfast drink. May I suggest calling it Poon(tm)?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You should hit Fox up so they can start working on the reality show end of things for you.
For some reason I refuse to use either spell check or the spacebar properly.
It seems to me that unless we develop the technologies required to provide the shielding afforded by 100 miles of atmosphere and/or propulsion to cut the trip time significantly, then a trip to Mars is a suicide mission. All other arguments aside, I don't think we can ask anyone to die just to plant a flag on Mars. The physical universe is a b*tch! Isn't it? So if we really want to go to Mars, we're going to have to spend the money and time to really do it right. With this in mind, a concerted global effort could pay dividends in a number of areas. I hope our leaders will have the vision to leverage this project for all its worth by engaging other nations in its undertaking.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Going to Mars would be the cancer cure. The increase in cancer rates would just accelerate the evolution of humans who don't get cancer from radiation - on Mars. After some generations, people new to Mars would still have a 10% cancer rate, while the locals wouldn't have to worry.
90% chance that nothing at all will happen to them?
Getting in your car and driving to the store, you have a 50/50 chance of getting killed in a wreck.
When it comes down to it, everything is 50/50
Either it will happen or it won't happen..
Suck it up and take the chance. I would do it in a heartbeat. And if told that I couldn't return to earth and had to remain on Mars for the rest of my life, that would be just fine with me. Matter of fact, I would prefer that option..
10% will die ?
Send only 9 astronauts so nobody will die. Easy, isn't it ?
Ok, where do I sign for the travel ?
Ploum.net.
I seem to remember that mars doesn't have a very strong magnetic field (which makes me wonder if it has something akin to a Van Allen radiation belts).
It may (or may not) be debatable if an astronaut survives a trip through earth's Van Allen radiation belts, but if Mars doesn't have anything similar to protect it against cosmic radiation, it's gonna be a bitch living on the planet for any length of time even if they do survive the trip...
Let them breed. The 90% that survives are obviously more cancer-resistant than the others. In a few generations, cancer rates will be at acceptable levels.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
I remember reading somewhere about utilizing water as a shield. The water layer would help block a large percentage of the radiation and could later be utilized upon landing. (A double practical concept.)
Also, I think the idea of a nuclear powered shield is a good concept. And it appears that radiation levels my fluctuate. So it may not be something needed at all times.
Lastly, how do we compensate for the international space station? i'm sure it has less "radiation" than deeper space...but still?
Or last alternative - we just send Russians...
Seems like more than 10% would die of cancer if they stayed here on Earth.
Sadder still, I went googling to find a link of all the cool stuff the Space program has produced or helped produce over the years, and all I seemed to find were a plethora of blog posts along the same lines: "Space? What has the space program done for us?"
Luddites....
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I see a lot of people here claiming that they or people like them would gladly brave the hardships of a trip to Mars just so "they can see it". That's not a compelling reason. Why? Because after you've spent years of your life traveling through space in very uncomfortable living quarters to a place that, once you get there, you realize is a ten thousand times more difficult for humans to inhabit than Death Valley, it'll dawn on you that--now that you've got an inoperable brain tumor that may kill you even before you get back to earth--it probably wasn't worth it just for a momentary visual response.
If you don't have some legitimate scientific passion for what can be discovered on Mars (and your certainty that we'll find vast underground Martian cities doesn't count), then please pipe down and leave the bullshit to the television pundits. You do an injustice to people who actually care.
This is so thoroughly different than early human explorers that it's not even a fair comparison. Sure, they risked death (and often got it), but the promise for them was of a better, more fertile land. That a fair reward for adventurous people who, realistically, were largely neither well to do nor educated. There is no such promise for Mars; it's unlikely that some medical panacea is hidden in Martian dirt, but that hope is the only reasonable driving force for its exploration.
Ok, so we "visit" Mars, see a primitive society. We start shooting, killing everyone in sight. After 20 or 30 years, we all die of cancer.
It's got Tom "I'm a crazy scientologist" Cruise written all over it.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
Didn't they experiment with aerogels that absorbed infra-red radiation (part of
that "we should make windows out of it" line of thought). Wouldn't there be some
way that they could dope aerogel to not only insulate the craft to keep it warm
but also block some cosmic radiation? It's already used to stop cometary fragments
and so on.
That would be significantly lighter than lead. A set of thin, aerogel tiles along
the habitable portions of the spacecraft, between outer and inner hull?
Neko
A spacecraft power system should not produce enough waste heat to create a problem--if it does it will simply be redesigned. On the earth we don't worry about it since we don't worry about efficiency in general--just build it cheap and conduct the extra heat away. But on a spacecraft mass and resources are precious. Any heat that is produced should be used for power generation. Waste heat on space ship is just as bad as glueing rocks to the side--it means you're carring stuff you don't need to. If the system produces waste heat, either build it smaller, build it slower, or find something else to power.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I'm just wondering here if the guy they talked to took physics at any time.
Do things like Gaussian theory and Faraday cages not work in space? In a vacuum, does net flux through a closed object stop becoming zero? Does lead no longer stop gamma radiation? Do our long-held laws and theories simply cease to apply at the boundaries of our atmosphere?
I'm just wondering. It sounds to me like he could use a little remedial instruction.
I read the article yesterday on fark. I'm not going to re-read it to get his name.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
And 10% of them die of cancer?
wahoo! bring on the 10,000 spf sunscreen!
It's hard to put a finger on exact technologies that were invented due to the space program. Many of them were ideas that never would have seen fruition if the open mindedness of the space race hadn't come along looking for any ideas to get them there faster.
Computer technology was certainly improved by the space race, giving it the "killer app" it was looking for since the 50's. Missile balistics and all were good, but it needed more.
Certainly Propulsion technology... er.. umm.. for lack of a better word.. Skyrocketed. Fuel cell research, environment scrubbers, communications, plastics, and lots of other industries got serious boosts, in part because of government funded research and contracts.
In many ways we were way too immature to be going to the moon in the 60's, and in many other ways, we're way too mature to have not been to Mars by now.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
They must carry water.
Make the water tanks surround the crew compartment.
If you subtract from that 10% the few % of the population that die from cancer anyway, it's not as bad a statistic.
It's like whining over how many died in Operation Desert Storm - a greater % of them would have died in normal accidents had they stayed at home.
Kill... or give them superpowers? We can't let the Russi^H^H^H^H^HRed Chinese beat us there!
sic
I love how they talk about shielding and then say the astronauts will still be exposed. Say what? How about examining what kind of shielding is necessary first, and then examining if there's any exposure risk.
In addition to shielding there are ongoing studies looking into more effective warning systems for explorers once they reach Mars. Right now, satellites monitor for coronal mass ejections and radiation levels but scientists aren't exactly sure how to predict direction and speed.
...
It's just another hurdle once they made it to surface
hopefully your math on mars will be better than your math on earth.
Why read the article when I can just make up a snap judgement?
Even if we went to Mars, twenty years later nobody would believe we did it anyway.
Going to Mars would be the cancer cure. The increase in cancer rates would just accelerate the evolution of humans who don't get cancer from radiation - on Mars. After some generations, people new to Mars would still have a 10% cancer rate, while the locals wouldn't have to worry.
That arument fails because cancer tends to strike late in life, after you have had kids, who have your cancer prone genes...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Many have already address your ludicrous comments in a more sensible way. Let me take a road less travelled. While you rail against the futurists, let me point your attention to people like you who did not see the benefits of telephones, horseless carriages, and airplanes. If it were up to people like you, then we would still be walking and using drums.
Just send people who already have cancer. I heard there are one or two on this planet.
10% will die from cancer... the other 90% from hellspawn.
"Welcome to mars, current population:
1 Human
50 Pinky Demons."
"A massive spacecraft built on the moon might possibly be constructed so that the shielding would reduce the radiation hazard," he told New Scientist. But even so he reckons that humans will be unable to travel more than 75 million kilometres (47 million miles) on a space mission about half the distance from the Earth to the Sun. This allowance might get them to Mars or Venus, but not to Jupiter or Saturn.
Why BS?
He gives a distance. Radiation is not absorbed based on HOW FAR YOU TRAVEL. It would be a TIME issue here folks. So, is that 75 million km mean a nice, slooooow hohmann trajectory -- maybe stopping along the way to look at the pretty void?
That alone made me want to bludgeon the bastard for restating the obvious (time in space implies radiation exposure, something we already knew).
They also never mentioned magnetic shielding; the earths magnetic field is INCREDIBLY weak. It is, however, huge. A smaller, strong field would not be that difficult to produce, and would decrease radiation inside the field by a calculable degree; e.g. it is simple math, if you know the particles in question and their velocity vectors (and have taken some physics).
10% extra, albeit annoying, is nothing when weighed against the excitement of being on a manned mission to Mars.
You know, NORMAL people might want to bring a woman along with the trip, not a monkey.
But hey, this is slashdot.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
No, really...
Goofy, Geeky Gifts and More!
Added mass is only a problem if you continue to think of constructing a traditional spacecraft, along the lines of the shuttle or an Apollo pod. If you start from scratch, and design based on the needs for the mission, you get something that will work.
For the moment, the only problem we're talking about is cosmic radiation. There are other problems (You'd need a much, much larger habital section than anything we have right now, long term life support system etc.) but those are actually also solved by adopting an ORION drive. The amount of thrust, and therefore the amount of mass you can shove around, is very, very large. Strap as much shielding onto it as you want. Gives you a lot of space to stick in a hydroponics garden and ample living quarters so that the astronauts don't go insane.
10-17% probability of cancer SOMETIME for those 25-35, and loss of fertility. Sounds perfectly doable to me.
First of all, that's about the same probability that they'll die in a voyage-related accident, as many have noted above. And this way, they still get to live for an additional 20-40 years before the die of cancer -- way better than death by explosive space-suit decompression.
Second, although the Russians send up young cosmonauts, the Americans only send up old people. No American aged 25-35 will fly to Mars. Any American Martians will be at least 45 and already have kids, thus reducing the cancer probability and neutralizing the sterility issue all in one go.
This all sounds quite do-able. Sign me up.
Why are we so concerned about effects of environment on other planets when we can't even haul our a**es of this one. I say we cross that bridge when we get to it - whichever century that may be!
OpenOffice tips:richhillsoftware.com
I see nowhere in the article any mention of what shield materials or thickness they are using for their calculations.
Any dose calculation is extremely dependent on these facts. What this article should say is "X amount of more shielding required to effectively shield astronauts on amrs trip."
this bullshit makes it sound like you'll get cancer no matter what
I just found the box to change my sig. Um.... [timeless witticism].
nt
We even have a yahoo listing... http://dir.yahoo.com/Entertainment/Humor/Science/
When we first started talking about the hole in the ozone layer, everone said the only hole was in our heads. But after an article in the in OMNI magazine on the CRDS, they ran a big story on the ozone hole the next month and then other news sources started talking about the ozone problem again.
If you check the link I provided above at... http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/1483/ozone.ht ml
You will find many links to real cosmic ray information. In fact many of the major cosmic ray sites link back to the Cosmic Ray Deflection Society.
I meta moderate regularly and I always check out the links provided if I don't immediately understand the post. Obviously whoever has modded this post down hasn't bothered to see what is there.
Thanks for any /.ers that actually take the time reading a post longer than one or two lines and check out information provided in the linkage...
"Where did this apple come from?"
--Alan Turing
ya, radiation might kill you while you're on mars, but so will other things like running out of food
During the biggest solar storms, astronauts could simply crawl into a safe room which was made of the tank containing their water and some lead sheilding.
A trip to mars will be 20 years away at least. With our growing knowledge of cancer, I don't think that cancer will be much of a problem. Even if they can't cure it on the trip, they will be able to slow down its advance easily.
Simply if we can't cure cancer by then I doubt we would have advanced enough to stay on mars.
Gerard O'Neill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_K._O'Neill was on the faculty of Princeton University in 1954 where he remained associated with until his death in 1992.
His ideas on lunar and asteroid mining may prove the solution to cosmic rays and astronauhts. He authored the book "The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space" which inspired a generation of space exploration advocates.
One of his ideas was to spin asteroids and heat them with lasers or solar mirrors. As the asteroid melts, different densities of elements move to differing parts of the oval shaped mass of molten rock. When cooled, he proposed that the minerals could be mined and if extracted properly, leave rooms that could be used as lining spaces for the miners. A one g spin could provide gravity.
Another of his ideas was to place several of these spinning spacehomes into orbits that crossed the trajectories of Mars and Earth. Then all we would have to do is hop on one near earth and jump off near mars. Same for the return trip.
Not sure what thickness would be required to obsorb/slow down the cosmic rays, but there would be enough mass to do so.
The L5 Society was founded in 1975 to promote the space colony ideas of Gerard Kitchen O'Neill. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L5_Society
Newsletter of L5 Society http://www.l5news.org/
The L5 News was published from September 1975 until April 1987, at which time the L5 Society merged with the National Space Institute to create the National Space Society. http://www.nss.org/
Here's a link to his book High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0962 237906/qid=1123095155/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-056543 1-9633535?v=glance&s=books
"Where did this apple come from?"
--Alan Turing
proof that the moon was spawned from the Earth
That's because they came from Earth. The astronauts never left earth. Really. It was a all a hoax.
With only a 10% possibility of dying from cancer I think I may move to Mars. My odds of dying from cancer here on Earth are every bit as good and on Mars I won't have to put up with all of the boneheads here on Earth that I have to deal with.
According to feds, 1 out 4 deaths in the US is from cancer ( around 500,000 a year). Sounds to me like you already have a damn good chance of dieing from cancer. Around 160,000 die from accidents ( including suicides). So, lets go to Mars and damn the cancer-torpedos!! Full speed ahead!!!
What percentage of people die of cancer here on earth? Maybe it's *safer* to live in a bio-dome on Mars...
I came, I saw, I left. It looked better in the brochure.
OK I didn't RTFA... are we talking drop dead in a couple of minutes kind of radiation, or potentially develop Cancer in like 10 or 20 years kind of radiation? Big differance.
We can just cross-splice astronauts and water bears. Water bears laugh at your puny cosmic rays! (If they laughed, which they don't because they are too tough for that kind of crap.)
[-- Trust the Monkey --]
Seriously, this is one of the same arguements from those who don't believe we ever visited the moon: The cosmic rays would kill you.
It's an interesting theory, but also one which must be answered before long term/distance space travel will be possible. Or even short term travel, if the conspiracy theorists are to be believed.
Somebody please mod this jackass down
Urhurhur. I have a stick up my ass, and can't see the humor in a joke. Obviously, this was an attempt, not at reductionist humor, but to belittle the entire NASA space program and imply that then only real product of their efforts was tang. I think I'll bitch about a bunch of random blog entries and call everyone techno-phobes, because I am much more educated even though I can't name a few space program spin offs from the top of my head. Fucktard.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
We need to start now in genetically engineering a breed of humans able to withstand the high energy particles. Sort like fish eveolving lungs and being able to withstand a foriegn environment.
have these people ever hear of a faraday cage? morons.
So rather than physical shielding, perhaps magnetic shielding would be more effective? After all, if Earth's (immense but diffuse) magnetic field protects us all from cosmic rays and the solar wind, how about a (localized but intense) magnetic shield? Hellfire, we could even use the thing to provide a little thrust (a la solar sail), at least on the way away from the Sun.
Get back down to earth geeks!
If you want to follow your half-assed space exploration dreams go ahead and fund it yourself, stop holding people at gunpoint through taxation to support what you believe is a valid waste of everybody's hard earned money.
F*ck NASA, somebody else would've eventually invented Tang and velcro.
and all I have to show for it is this radioactively glowing t-shirt.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Strangely enough, I just started reading the first TPB volume of Earth X last night! Good stuff, beautiful art with a Joss Whedon foreword. And from the local library to boot!
Ceci n'est pas un post.
That means 1 out of 10 astronauts will get cancer, in that case, send 9! Problem solved. Or, simply send astronauts that already have cancer!
wouldn't that kill you off faster?
... the monkeys might decide to gang up on you for bogarting it for the whole trip.
not the pallet of cigarettes - the xBox
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It's a fact of life.
This info is not new. Know and considered for some time by NASA and others. Also, this is typically outside the expertise of the FAA (where the report originated from), so that's odd.
c trostatics.htm
Here's a link to an overview of work on this problem...
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/24jun_ele
ALSO, be sure to check out the links to more info at the bottom of that page.
As far as the value of spaceflight, NASA uses less than 1/10th of 1 percent of the Federal Budget, and returns an average of $3+ to every $1 spent in technology returns. This of course doesn't measure the value of inspiration to youth in pursuing careers in science, engineering, and medicine. Also, providing prestige to the nation and expanding the frotiers of human knowledge for application here on earth (e.g. study of global change began with NASA funded research).
Anyone got the number for Puppeteer sales? No rays are getting through a General Products Hull #4.
Everytime this type issue comes up (gravity, raditation, etc), it appears the scientific community pretty spends their determining there would be a problem getting people to Mars and it might be hard to solve.
Sci-Fi writers in the 50's, and later seem to have already considered these problems and put solutions into their stories. Some of them are pretty well thought out. Might be useful to read some of those stories again.
This is all propaganda because they want to keep everyday people from getting their own set of super powers.
Wood Shavings!
- Godai
article:
The risks are smaller for older people because cancers have less time to develop.
Al Franken: http://www.centerfieldview.com/archives/000010.htm l
Fact one: 30% of medicare expenditures are incurred by people in the last year of their lives.
Fact two: NASA spends billions a year on astronaut safety.
Maybe you see where I'm going.
Why not shoot the elderly into space? Stay with me. Because I'm not just thinking about the budget here. I'm talking about science. Just think how many more manned space operations NASA could undertake if they didn't have to worry about getting the astronauts back.
http://www.menstuff.org/issues/byissue/breastcance r.html
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
Didn't Apollo era astronauts claim that cosmic rays caused flashes in their eyes or something to that effect?
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
This is one of the reasons we should be working towards building a truly massive space ship. Grab and asteroid or comet, put it into earth orbit, then spend the next 50 years turning it into a space ship and then go somewhere with it.
Space travel is a long term thing. Let's take our time and do it right.
It would be funny it it wasn't so goddamned common. And your sense of humour sucks, as I mentioned. Despite the stick in my ass, it's not hard to get a laugh out of me.
call everyone techno-phobes
Nope, Luddites. There's a difference, at least to me.
I am much more educated
Wrong again. Not trying to lord it over anyone, just scik and fucking tired of this meme.
I can't name a few space program spin offs from the top of my head
Well I can, actually. I just thought I'd back my shit up.
Fucktard
Asshole! This is fun!
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I always hear this argument about spinoff technology from the space race. Here's a thought-- what if the massive resources were used to solve the problems and invent the technology directly rather than as a byproduct of sending someone into space? What if the same resources were devoted to solving problems here on earth? Maybe as a spinoff of that, we could have space technology, but wouldn't it be smarter to make the priority be what's going on down here and the issues we already know will affect billions of us on this planet?
That'll get ya all the shielding ya need!
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
What's the baseline incidence of cancer in the general population?
If 9.5% of groundhogs and 10% of space farers die of cancer, I think I'll take my chances headed to Mars.
Hell, I'd take my chances anyway. Odds are better than those with smoking...
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Just a basic question but I was curious why there are so many more cosmic rays in space. Is it simply that our atmosphere shields us as in like the ozone layer or gases in general or what? Also are there more cosmic rays in any particular part of the solar system or is the risk simply linearly related to amount of time traveling in space and that the problem is simply that it takes so long to get to mars?
Especially if our female astronauts come back looking like Jessica Alba! Yum!
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Obiously math is not your strong suit. You might want to try to just add up the cost of sending up someone with a shovel to bring back a pound of lunar rock and compare it to the cost of mining almost anywhere on earth. Silicon is not exactly in short supply and availablity of raw materials is hardly the limiting factor in its production for industrial applications.
./'rs don't know the difference between x-rays and gama rays nor do they have any idea of how much it will cost to send lead into orbit.
From what I can see of these posts, most
It's a matter of knowing what to search for really, I found this in the first try. http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/
I think it would be more useful to speak in terms of how much a Mars trip would *increase* the likelihood of developing cancer, beyond the natural risks you face without taking the trip.
Because in 2002, cancer caused ~22% of all the deaths (Malignant neoplasms). So the 10% statistic seems misleading.
I'm fifty years old. I've been a space fan all my life. I have no dependents. I'm largely with my current planet. I'd go, even if I knew it was a one way trip. I jsut can't think of what I could do to top a trip to Mars in the lifespan that's left to me. Say I was one year on the way, and could live there for two years before I fell over dead. That's in the neighborhood of a 6:1 trade. It would still be worth it. A year in space, two years on Mars! I'll trade that against the twenty or so years of day-to-day life I can reasonably expect here on Earth. In a freaking heartbeat!
This radiation problem is the exact reason we did NOT send people to the moon and NASA had to fake it. All the astronaughts would have been burnt to a crisp in that flimsy little capsule. WAKE UP PEOPLE AND CONNECT THE DOTS!!!!
And whoever WTFA should know that. It's been baseline for any Mars mission for the past 30 years. Basically, part or all of the inhabited part of the Mars-bound craft is surrounded by water tanks. This is really easy, because people use a lot of water. In a small-shelter scenario, astronauts climb into storm shelter and wait. In a slightly larger vessel, there are several meters of ice/slush/water between the crew and the radiation. This is more the Marshal Savage approach, read The Millenium Project for more. In-space rad environment can, with enough water, be more benign than on Earth.
Inflatable craft, life Bigelow's Nautilus, lend themselves to being inflated with water instead of gas. Read up on "TransHab" for a preview of what he has been working on.
For radiation on Mars, similar solutions can be achieved. Water or methane tanks can be stacked atop a can or inflatable Hab. Bases on the frozen sea of Elysium could be melted down into the ice and then topped over. With engineered structures, domes and barrel vaults of many sizes and thickness could reduce radiation levels to acceptable.
Overreaction. Just because you can't solve a problem doesn't mean others can't.
josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
my memory might be off, but first, I thought the radiation that is hardest to shield is gamma radiation.
Because most radiation is coming from a precise direction, it's possible to construct the vessel so that human activity is all on one side. And storage, machinery, everything else is between the astronauts and the sun. So mass that is there anyway gets a second function.
Then, sleeping positions could be optimized. Sleeping in the direction of the sun would decrease the area that receives radiation. Sleeping locations would be places the places with the least radiation. Very local shielding (something the size of a big hat) could reduce the amount of radiation more.
Awake, there could also be a preference to work along the same axis. Places where a lot of time is spent get extra protection, or are placed where there is extra protection. This could be applied to 'room' size, but I'd considers locations the size of a seat.
I wonder what reduction in radiation can be achieved by just clever 'arrangements'. A factor 10? Probably less, but more than a factor 2.
STIMPY: Stop it! You're talking crazy!
REN: "Oh, no. I know what YOU want. You coveteth my ICE CREAM BAR!"
STIMPY: "C'mon now..."
REN: "No, you don't! You can't take it from me now. I've had this ice cream bar since I was a CHILD! People... always trying to take it from me! Why won't they LEAVE ME ALOOOOONNNNE?"
STIMPY: "Easy, now."
REN: "Back off, man! (grabs toothbrush) Don't make me use this! One step closer, I'm WARNING ya! Don't make me use it! (Stimpy steps closer) NOW you've done it. YOU FORCED ME TO USE IT!"
(horrible sound as Ren brushes his teeth. They struggle. Ren loses.)
REN: "Eeee... eh... I'm hurting." (collapses)
STIMPY: "You poor crazy kid!"
Silicon & Charybdis McLuhan Kildall Papert Kay
It's called evolution. While some flesh-and-blood human beings may still be kept in protected environments (i.e. zoos) for their historical curiousity, our intelligent robot descendants will be the the one who get to do most of the cool and fun space exploration. Someday, it will be much easier to build a custom-designed intelligent robot that is capable of functioning in the particular temperature, radiation, gravity, and atmospheric conditions for any given mission. In fact, except for the "intelligence" part, that day has already been here for 30 years or more.
According to ancient Indian theories,man can achieve time and space travel, just through meditation. The moment we realise that we are not matter(An atom is just a form of energy and man i smade of atoms), but just energy, we can travel anywhere at the speed of light..
Food for thought.. Need to train the astronauts in meditation. But Once they get those powers, they will probably be enlightened and will not feel the need to do something like this.
Well if I brought a woman along she will try to usurp my dictatorship via humiliating comments.. "take out the trash", "wash the dishes", "rub my feet"... how is a dictator going to inspire fear in his monkey minions with that going on? GOSH!
...invent a better sunscreen, like SPF 4000000.
So, how big a deal is that increased cancer risk from cosmic rays, really?
You can't have a battle of wits against an unarmed opponent.
It looks like Marvel got one right about Cosmic Rays and Space Travel. Stan Lee is a man ahead of his time!
Ok, you found four different powers, but what about the Red Ghost and his Super Apes? What about Dark Phoenix? Someone create an electromagetic force field to keep out the cosmic rays, or some sort of cosmic ray dampening device. Either that, or become The Silver Surfer and soak in those cosmic rays to icrease your powers.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
This is why every time some talks about a trip to mars, they tend to talk about older astronaughts rather than young ones. This way, even those that do get cancer will not have their life cut significantly shorter.
If it doesn't fit into already known science, it's "junk science". If it has a touch of politics with it as well, it's a "conspiracy theory".
We have just as many bogus so-called scientists now as back in ye olden days. The tech has marginally improved, the psychological make up of self important know-it-alls is exactly the same. These are the modern flat earther's. 100 gahzillion planets, yet there's no chance according to slashdot meme that the millions of UFO sightings are actual other sentinet beings. Oh my, that's just ridiculous. Plenty of evidence of government outright lying about this or that very important thing, yet when it comes to space they suck down every syllable from government or need-government-money-to-survive academics like it's gospel.
Pretty funny really.
While I know that just about everything in space is difficult, compared to the other stuff we pull off routinely that doesn't sound terribly tough.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Dateline before they had calendars: Lions, other predators could kill proto-humans venturing into the grasslands. Best to just stay in the trees.
Dateline 1492: High seas, storms in enormous Atlantic ocean could sink Columbus's ships before he can get across it and to China. Let's just stay in Europe, kay?
Dateline 1849: More crap than I can list could happen to you on your way to Oregon and California - Best to just stay back east where it's safe.
My point is, playing it safe and being absolutely terrified of risks makes it certain that you won't go anywhere new. Imagine if 1967-Nasa got replaced by 2005-Nasa just before the Apollo 1 disaster. By early 1970, the commission would have completed it's review. By 1973, the first unmanned Apollo to go around the moon would be launched. After spending 3 more years confirming that the astronauts won't get a life-threatening dose of radiation, a manned apollo circumnavigates the moon. By the time we land, the first TRS-80's are hitting the shelves.
On a different note, I have a solution to the enormous problem of getting stuff out of our gravity well: Send up enough to capture a small NEO that's already out of it. Get it into a stable orbit about 600 miles up. You've now got millions of tons of metals, silicates, and oxides to work with.
The dog is on fire.
---
What subliminal message?
Generated by SlashdotRndSig via GreaseMonkey
Why is it that when you believe something it's an opinion, but when I believe something it's a manifesto?
mod me down, but who the fuck wants to go to mars anyway?
did you know you could get dysentary from crawling down to the bottom of a port-a-potty?
that's why i don't go down there....the same with mars. let's save our government's money for foreign wars!
lies, damn lies and statistics.
It's a bitch when you can't see yourself because you're invisible.
The geek shall inherit the earth.
it's not hard to get a laugh out of me.
but the fucking stick won't budge!
Nope, Luddites. There's a difference, at least to me.
cute.
Wrong again. Not trying to lord it over anyone, just scik and fucking tired of this meme.
blah blah blah...i know a buzz word!
Well I can, actually. I just thought I'd back my shit up.
don't think so much, it hurts all of us involved.
Asshole! This is fun!
don't be hard on yourself.
and the chances that any children conceived by travellers to Mars will have genetic defects are put at around 1%.
"Stop teasing me! I have 3 eyes because my Mommy went to Mars."
Table-ized A.I.
Exploration is risky business. Always has been, always will be. We should do our best to mitigate those risks, but consider this: How many people died exploring the far reaches of our planet? Quite a few. Was it worth it? In my opinion... Absolutely!
The world we have today wouldn't exist if it wasn't for those courageous souls who ventured into the unknown. Of course there were the naysayers who exclaimed: "It cannot be done! Its too dangerous!" Fortunately, people did it anyway. Let us hope, for the sake of the future, that we can bring ourselves to do it again.
Not trying to lord it over anyone, just scik and fucking tired of this meme.
/. who can't be bothered to read something before they ejaculate their worthless opinion all over anyone they can...
Then perhaps you should spout you cute little angst ridden rant when someone posts a genuine jab at NASA's value, rather than someone who is making fun of people who can't see the value of a national space program.
Goddam. Another fucking droid on
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
One thing this and most other articles fail to mention is that radiation exposure on the Martian surface is about 75% of that in space. The thin Martian atmosphere offers little protection, and when particles get through and strike atoms in the soil they create a scatter of secondary radiation, some of which scatters upward.
One of NASA's Design Reference Missions to Mars involves a total mission duration of 900 days with a 500 day stay on the surface. This mission would expose the crew to more than their allowable lifetime radiation dosage. Another mission profile involves a 435-day duration. Both of these missions involve a year's round trip travel time, and virtually doom the crew to early cancer deaths after their return to Earth.
Gaseous Core Nuclear Rockets would make Mars missions truly feasible. For reasons discussed in detail here, here and here, among other places, GCNR rockets would get a mission to Mars and back in 270 days, with 7 months travel time and 60 days on the surface. Additionally, the GCNR rocket would have huge carrying capacity, enough for the craft to carry a foot-thick water shield in a double hull. Such a ship would reduce the crew's total radiation exposure to about 1/5 of the 435-day mission and 1/10th of the 900 day mission. The water layer would also act as a giant passive heat sink, eliminating the need for a complex refrigeration system. It would also be a self-sealing micrometeorite shield -- the outer few inches of water would freeze, and if a micrometeorite punctured the hull the escaping water would refreeze over the hole immediately.
*lights my Marlboro*
... the chance of a reward of superpowers, such as super-strength, super-agility, or being able to turn yourself invisible or into a living flame!
...and I'll say it again. This is why we MUST divert more power to the shield generators.
If a baby duck is a "duckling," why would anyone want to eat "dumplings?"
My proposal, the Pork Chop Express.
Named for the plot of minimum-time/energy orbits between Earth and Mars... And Kurt Russel's truck in "Big Trouble in Little China." It's also squarely against Zubrin's Mars Express, and a shift in thinking about space transportation roles.
We think of space stations as staying in one relatively local orbit, and space craft as moving between orbits, or between the surface of a planet and an orbit. How about a space station that lives in a transfer orbit? In this case, a space station that is in an elliptical solar orbit that transits between Earth and Mars. More study is needed to make sure an orbit can be constructed to stay synchronous to the two planets, and not just cross their orbits, obviously. It doesn't pay to get to either orbit, when the planet is elsewhere. For a simpler situation, think of a transfer station that orbits the Earth and Moon. For the moment, let's assume a suitable orbit could be calculated for Earth and Mars...
The key is that it's a long-term structure, and you don't accelerate it after construction. That way, it can be as big as you want it to be. That includes those big bags of water clustered around the crew module. That also includes the several layers of polyethelene bags inside that. As others may have mentioned, in interplanetary space, lead shields are one of the last things you want. But the real essence is, for a non-accelerating platform, you can afford to spend some weight on appropriate shielding.
In this case, some sort of transfer vehicle accelerates you from LEO to the Pork Chop Express. At Mars, either the same, or a similar vehicle transports you to LMO. But the bulk of the journey is made in a free-falling structure that is as big as it needs to be in order to get appropriate shielding for the transit time. Passengers bring their consumables, and the transit station is left automated and unoccupied when nobody needs to travel. There would probably need to be a wheel tucked away in there somewhere, if only for a gym.
Beyond the finding an acceptable, synchronized orbit, the biggest issue is getting enough water up there. Right behind that is construction technique, because major assembly should probably be done in LEO, accelerating the mostly-assembled station into the transfer orbit. Remaining assembly would either be done inside shields or by robots.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Just give them some lead underwear and call it a day! 3 - 2 - 1 - LIFTOFF! Red Planet here we come!
Generation Trance: What generation are you?
I've read that in the book YEAR's ago, this is the whole joke about the title. Why is it new news now?
Yeah, yeah, I know, wouldn't ever leave the house, etc... like you don't play with what you have enough as it is.
Six score characters.
Brevity being wit's soul
I have enough space.
I wasn't being ideal about it, just pessimistically low-budget :)
If what you want is to try to absorb the rays, you need lots of volume. Big bags of air. The whole assembly will look something like a cluster of grapes.
So as not to annoy the bremstrahlung deity, the skin of the grapes will have to be thin. Either the skin will be self-repairing, or, in a large enough production, you will need staff constantly checking for leaks. Or both. Even with no punctures, H2 will be leaking out of the bags, and the vacuum of space will be doing its part to help. So, you will likely bring other gases along as well... While we're at it, maybe also some smaller, transparent water filled bags with algal farms to process wastewater and generate oxygen. Those could be used as a nice self-repairing backup system in case the solar panels or other systems fail. That's what I would put on the outside of the spacecraft.
On the inside, ideally speaking, we would want lots of space again. So, the conclusion is that to do things ideally requires more bags and more assembly time in LEO, and it's still not a perfect system.
If we had the technology to build something like the Monoliths, I suspect we would have invented FTL travel...
Didn't you see the movie, or at least read the book (definitely worth reading)? The monoliths weren't built by us, they were built by the aliens. So all we have to do is find one, and (rather than contacting the aliens with it, as we wouldn't trust them anyway...) we could use it as shielding for our Mars trip :)
This info is not new. Know and considered for some time by NASA and others. Also, this is typically outside the expertise of the FAA (where the report originated from), so that's odd. Here's a link to an overview of work on this problem... http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/24jun_elec trostatics.htm [nasa.gov]
ALSO, be sure to check out the links to more info at the bottom of that page.
As far as the value of spaceflight, NASA uses less than 1/10th of 1 percent of the Federal Budget, and returns an average of $3+ to every $1 spent in technology returns. This of course doesn't measure the value of inspiration to youth in pursuing careers in science, engineering, and medicine. Also, providing prestige to the nation and expanding the frotiers of human knowledge for application here on earth (e.g. study of global change began with NASA funded research).
The cosmic ray deflection society is listed in yahoo/humor/science
And if cosmic ray deflection works, as some believe, then it would solve the problem the original story posed.
"Where did this apple come from?"
--Alan Turing
The easiest example for what the space program got us is right in front of your face, and you even mentioned it, but far too many people don't think about how deep an impact it really had. Rockets and moon landers and orbiters (oh my!) needed computing power, and vacuum tube-based computers were too heavy and too sensitive to do the job, so lots of work was put into building solid state computing devices. This brought on the computer age, and even the grandest Luddite would have a hard time imagining something with a bigger influence on the world today than microcomputers.
Virg