Some people are getting “exercised.” Actually, not GCR broadly, but the heavy nuclei component. And it is the world’s recognized authority on space radiation, Dr. Eugene Parker, the guy they named the space probe after, that has concerns. And others. NASA is not concerned about people who go on a couple missions and don’t go anymore. So, as usual, my comments are being mischaracterized and mocked by fanboys and naysayers. Endless strings of NewSpace dogma defense are posted whenever I challenge those tenets; trivializing radiation being one of Musk’s favorites. Enjoy!
Well….could be you are wrong. Since we do oil wells miles underwater with ROV’s that might be a clue it will work. We will see. Maybe a little too much sci-fi, but all the fairy tales here have to do with a certain “entrepreneur” and I am not a fan.
Not going to be anybody working outside on the Moon. Only initially when necessary and as soon as it is not, no astronaut is going to add to his (and especially her) lifetime dose and hasten the end of their career in space bunny-hopping. As a robot, to haul regolith or ice, I am all for it.
That does not change a single thing I said. I think you tried to do what your NewSpace hero likes to do and I stated that. And you replied with more comments inferring it is…trivial. It is not.
(CNN) When the next astronaut to reach the moon walks on the lunar surface in 2024, she’ll face radiation levels 200 times higher than on Earth.
While Apollo mission astronauts carried dosimeters to the moon to measure radiation, the data was never reported. The first systematically documented measurements of radiation on the moon were undertaken in January 2019 when China’s Chang’e 4 robotic spacecraft mission landed on the far side of the Moon, according to a new study in the journal Science Advances.
Astronauts on moon missions would experience an average daily radiation dose equivalent to 1,369 microsieverts per day — about 2.6 times higher than the International Space Station crew’s daily dose, the study said.”
“(NBC) Depending on when you fly a space mission, a female will fly only 45 to 50 percent of the missions that a male can fly,” Peggy Whitson, the former chief of NASA’s Astronaut Corps, said. “That’s a pretty confining limit in terms of opportunity. I know that they are scaling the risk to be the same, but the opportunities end up causing gender discrimination based on just the total number of options available for females to fly. (That’s) my perspective.” [Radiation Threat for Mars-Bound Astronauts (Video)]
NASA follows radiation exposure recommendations established by the National Council of Radiation Protection and Measurements. The exposure limits for women are about 20 percent lower compared to men “largely due to additional cancer risk for woman from breast, ovarian and uterine cancers,-“
Really Richard…”Calm down”? Your fanboy tactic to make me seem “exercised”?
You just keep posting the same dogma- inferring that radiation is trivial. And mocking me.
Exactly like I said the Fanboys do. NASA does know what it is doing- sending people into space for a certain amount of time and then it is over for them. But you want to portray that as something different. What you wrote is so disingenuous. Thanks for proving me right and self-identifying as a “one note Prophet of Musk.”
Nothing can stop the heavy nuclei component of GCR except mass and distance. I have read a lot more than what Parker has to say, he is just the most famous speaker of truth I can cite to make Musk look like a fool on this issue. Which he, and his fanboys, certainly are. If the lifetime dose is a universal 600 mSv, nobody is going to Mars. Not without that massive shield Parker describes; “The Parker Minimum.”
That is about 500 tons of water for a very small capsule and for any practical crew compartment for long duration missions it will be in the neighborhood of a thousand. For a small crew.
“To protect astronauts from cancer-causing radiation in space, NASA should proceed with proposals to set a universal career-long radiation dose limit of ~600 millisieverts (mSv), says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.”
Lunar polar ice deposits are a long way from the most likely lava tube sites for ready made habitats. It might be most practical to transport water from the deposits to the lava tube bases over land and this would, by way of a water carrier, provide massive radiation shielding for any scientists who wanted access to the lunar surface. In fact, if properly designed, such a vehicle could have a kind of “moon pool” in the underside and the whole vehicle lower itself on it’s chassis over any interesting features the scientists wanted to inspect closely. The vehicle could lower itself over an area the size of a large living room and the scientists could open an airlock hatch and descend to the surface, into “the living room”, for study without getting dosed. A little leakage through the edges, but far better than out in the open. It would still be in a vacuum, but they could take their time.
“What we can predict”?
Not we.
I predict deriving water from lunar ice and constructing habitats will NOT be done by people in spacesuits on the surface. No way, or at least very very little.
It has to be done with equipment remotely operated. Astronauts in spacesuits have extreme difficulty doing simple repair jobs on the ISS in spacesuits. The kind of manual labor you are talking about is not going to happen and not just because of radiation limits.
As I keep stating, underwater operations with ROV’s are the model to reference. “We” used to use saturation divers but they go down now only for very special and difficult problems.
“An instrument aboard the Curiosity Mars rover during its 253-day deep-space cruise revealed that the radiation dose received by an astronaut on even the shortest Earth-Mars round trip would be about 0.66 sievert. This amount is like receiving a whole-body CT scan every five or six days.
A dose of 1 sievert is associated with a 5.5 percent increase in the risk of fatal cancers. The normal daily radiation dose received by the average person living on Earth is 10 microsieverts (0.00001 sievert).”
Lifetime dose is soon going to become a universal 600 mSv for astronauts.
No shiny starships to Muskopolis.
No…you say that is what “he thinks” but far from “expressly.” He did not say that at all. He is applying that inference to conventional spacecraft as presently constructed. NOT nuclear propelled space-ships with massive shielding.
You just twist everything, everything, so it ONLY applies to the NewSpace view of exploration.
NewSpace is a deception. What Elon and many others are pushing is all hype and the numbers- not the dollar numbers, which fanboys always scream about, but the numbers having to do with real physiological requirements- do not support NewSpace tenets. One of which is that radiation is a trivial problem. It is THE problem.
Not realistic for NewSpace fans, but completely realistic for those not hyping the fantasy of a cult leader.
For you, it seems the only “remotely realistic prospect” is what Elon Musk tells you.
Your “endgame” is to promote the NewSpace ideology that it can all be done on the cheap. Transparent.
“-the radiation dose received by an astronaut on even the shortest Earth-Mars round trip would be about 0.66 sievert.
A dose of 1 sievert is associated with a 5.5 percent increase in the risk of fatal cancers. The normal daily radiation dose on Earth is 10 microsieverts (0.00001 sievert).”
Lifetime dose is soon going to become a universal 600 mSv for astronauts.
The minimum amount of the shielding he is describing in water is 500 tons.
“By comparison, the space shuttle can carry a maximum payload of about 30 tons. Water is commonly proposed because astronauts would need it anyway and because it is rich in hydrogen. Heavier elements make less effective shields because the extra protons and neutrons in their nuclei fall in one another’s shadows, limiting their ability to interact with an incoming cosmic ray. To increase the hydrogen content, engineers could use ethylene (C2H4), which has the further advantage that it can be poly merized to polyethylene, a solid, thereby avoiding the necessity for a tank to contain it. Even so, the required mass would be at least 400 tons—still not feasible.“
I acknowledge you are a trying to mislead and misinform and being profoundly dishonest. Disgusting fanboy deception tactic to spin my comments like that. Really disgusting.
You have no honor.
Ice on the Moon 