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."

Comments

Yah, but lead costs $, Mars mission is unfunded

[elwinc]

Often, the difference between 'problem' and 'expense' is a function of your budget. In the case of the Mars mission, the only thing that's funded is a little bit of planning. Everything else is unfunded, so everything else is a problem.

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.

Re:Sign me up

[Madcapjack]

What about a 100% chance of not coming home? That would greatly lower the overall cost of such a trip...

Maybe Bush should volunteer Karl Rove?

the moon race got us 'nothing' but orangy goodness

[TiggertheMad]

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.