Cosmic Radiation Speeds up Aging in Space?

SpaceAdmiral writes "The Theory of Relativity tells us that the faster a person travels the slower time passes for that person relative to someone left on Earth. This means that traveling at high velocities in a spacecraft should reduce one's aging. However, recent research suggests that cosmic radiation may counteract that anti-aging effect. Iron-nuclei radiation affects the aging of cells, which is possibly one of the reasons astronauts who have been to the Moon tend to get cataracts about 7 years earlier than other astronauts."

Comments

So...

[op12]

...time to put on my tinfoil suit!

Perfect solution for clones

[shaitand]

All we have to do is bombard clones with the right kind of radiation and we can rapid grow them now.

Re:Perfect solution for clones

[Dr. Eggman]

Ehh, some people like dry, fake-math based jokes and some people don't...

Bah!

[GillBates0]

Bah! You young 'uns and your fancy schmancy "cosmic radiation". In my day, we didn't have this uppity "Iron-nuclei radiation". We got by with regular sunshine in the day, moonlight during the night and we liked it.

Young..

[onion2k]

One way or another, NASA plans to keep their astronauts feeling young.

Miss Young was unavailable for comment.

Back In My Day

[Skeetskeetskeet]

We used to go to the moon in my front yard in a cardboard box covered in tin foil, and we never experienced any cosmic radiation or aging effects. The martians looked strangely like the neighbors golden retrievers, and the moon rocks we took home as samples smelled like dog poop, but it was all in the name of science.

Cataracts?

[Philip K Dickhead]

No! I drive Rincoln-Continentar!

Lying makes you go blind DOUBLE PROOF

[netsavior]

which is possibly one of the reasons astronauts who have been to the Moon tend to get cataracts about 7 years earlier than other astronauts So basically this proves what my mom said Lying makes you go blind. It also proves that the moon missions were fake.

Small Sample

[SEWilco]

I'm all in favor of further study on a larger number of people who go at least as far as the Moon.

It gets worse

[nizo]

When you travel near the speed of light just think of how many more cosmic rays you collide with since you are going so fast.

Re:SAMPLE SIZE??? !!!

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

I mean c'mon. Is the sample size really large enough to make a call on the average number of years it takes for the onset of cataracts? How many people have walked the surface of the moon?

I did a survey at my cubicle and I conclude that 100% of the Earth's population agrees that the sample size is too small.

Cataracts?

[nightsweat]

I had heard the astronauts get Cadillacs earlier which, ironically, is also a sign of premature aging.

Whoa...

[FusionDragon2099]

The Fantastic Four must be pretty old at this rate!

Re:Yeah, but that won't alter time

[dougmc]

I know that you can't just be accelerated to C or 1/2 without infinite force.

You can't reach 1 c, because it would require infinite amounts of energy ... that's one way of looking at it, and as accurate as any other. As for 0.5 c, you can reach that -- you'll just need massive amounts of energy to accelerate a macroscopic object to that speed, at least by our current 20th century standards.

All I'm saying is that we won't know untill we try

Until we try what? Try to accelerate Geraldo to 0.5 c out of the solar system? I'd pay a dollar to see that!

The effects of relativity have been measured experimentally. Atomic clocks put onto planes and flown around the world have been found to run very slightly slower, and subatomic particles that are known to last for X picoseconds have been found to last much longer when zipping about at 0.999c. Neat stuff -- coming up with theories like this is one thing, but actually showing the effects in the real world -- that's what's really neat.