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Mars-Bound Probe Serves As Radiation Guinea Pig
sighted writes "This week's huge solar storm will benefit future astronauts, thanks to the rover Curiosity, now on its way to Mars. The rover is equipped with an instrument that measures the radiation exposure that could affect a human astronaut en route to the Red Planet. Scientists are just starting to pore over the data from the blast of particles. Don't worry about the poor robotic geologist, though: 'No harmful effects to the Mars Science Laboratory have been detected from this solar event,' says NASA."
I hope no on tells PETA that NASA is irradiating a guinea pig with a probe.
I'm sure Citizen #64226 would be interested in hearing about the failure to stop the latest invader from the blue planet, but he's busy trying to regrow his gelsacs...
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
And when PHOBOS heard this it GRUNTed.
Silence is a state of mime.
This problem could make a manned trip to Mars impossible. The radiation in open space from one solar flare would fry a bunch of astronauts. Sending people to Mars becomes a gamble on the odds of a solar event occurring. Worse yet. There is no technology within reach that can protect astronauts from this type of radiation. A few feet of lead shielding might help some, but the weight would be too much to get into space. Plus, try slowing down all that mass when you arrive at Mars. Perhaps a nuclear powered wire loop ( super conducting??? ) with a circumference of a mile or two? Something with enough kick to deflect super high speed charged particles a few meters - enough to keep them away from the crew?...
I don't see any way to get people to mars with an acceptably high probability of survival.
Newt was not the first to propose an ambitious space project.
Mars, bitches!
And this, my fellow Americans, is why we need to have our first real black president.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It would be interesting as well to know how much of an impact this would have to people on the Martian surface. Mars's magnetic field is pretty weak compared to ours. I guess they would be a little better protected just by the planet surface itself.
Even on the Apollo missions to the moon, they recognized that a solar storm could be a significant threat to the astronauts. Given the infrequence they decided to just take their chances. But the time they spent outside of the LEO was pretty low compared to what a Mars mission would entail.
Every time you post an article on Slashdot, I kill a server. Think of the servers!
If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend watching the Curiosity Launch Video. I don't think the rover has to worry about radiation so much as the landing. I'd like to start a pool on which part of the untested landing sequence will fail and deliver a smoking hole in Mars instead of the rover.
I seriously hope it works - if it does it will be one of humanity's most amazing technological feats. But I fear the worst.
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
Needs a lot of water, if you were to locate the water in between hull layers it acts as quite a nice radiation shield.
And perhaps, though I'm not certain and currently feeling lazy, a micro meteorite shield as well.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
We've an important question: "how to accomplish the fullfilment of the prophecy when the man/woman abandons the Earth?".
Why to put we in risk our lives when few individuals wanted evilnessly to success their own "evil mission" for their own private interests?.
JCPM: Oh! God mine! I'm here because i was assigned no another place than here, on this planet named "La Tierra".
When a junior reporter inquired as to the absence of gleeful wriggling from the general direction of Citizen #64226, K'Breel had only this to say: "...and would that be nuked or fried?"
Earth AND Mars are both death-traps.
This isn't about our individual survival.
It is about having our species survive beyond the Sun's lifespan AND beyond a localized event in this part of the galaxy.
Humans need to spread out across the galaxy or we will be killed off. Period.
to a galaxy far, far away?
Pore editores. Don't they know poor from pour?
Their they're doing there hair.
When we studied manned Mars missions at Boeing, and ate samples of the long term food, we placed the "storm shelter" in the middle of the food storage lockers. Food contains water and carbohydrates which contain hydrogen, which is good shielding. If you have a once-through food system, the waste goes back in the same lockers, and maintains the shielding. If you have a regenerative life support, with a greenhouse, the storm shelter goes in the middle of the growing area/water tanks/food storage. Even with a greenhouse there will be some stored food.
For sustainable development, you want to hijack materials from an asteroid between Earth and Mars, and install a habitat surrounded by rock shielding. Placed in a transfer orbit between the two planets, you ride it most of the way, only exposing the crew at the ends of the trip. The habitat spends most of it's time growing food and extracting materials and fuel, which get forwarded to other locations by electric tugs. A sustainable supply chain is necessary if you ever want much more than a "flags and footprints" mission.
Funny how NASA's probe can withstand a noteworthy coronal mass ejection, while the Phobos Grunt is apparently downed by radar.