nuclear-news

Among the zillion ways that outer space is not like in the movies is lethal radiation. Other ways? Distances, travel speeds, costs, lack of anything but punishing, lifeless voids, and no economically harvestable anything. But let’s pause to reflect again, or possibly for the first time, about thatlethal radiation thingy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/space-radiation-makes-mars-mission-hazardous/2013/05/30/1acd1542-c94a-11e2-9245-773c0123c027_story.html

Why we persist in a grade-school-level discussion about human space travel confounds me. Maybe it’s because we spent all our space education funds sending astronauts to grade schools, to tell them that there was a good career in human space travel, which there wasn’t and never will be. The ‘humans have always explored’ theme is true, but the main thing that is left unexplored is that theme itself. Yes, humans have always explored, and what it’s been about is finding things and places that are of value and doing it in a way that makes sense. You don’t walk into an erupting volcano just because people like to explore.

We have all the information we need already about habitation suitability in our solar system (slim to none), and we have all the information we need about its value aside from cheap thrills (none). We have the technology to robotically do everything humans can do in space at a tiny fraction of the cost. It’s still exploration!

Okay, the story cited here does say that in a trip to Mars, barring a big solar event, the amount of radiation received might “not be lethal” as long as you get lucky and beat the odds of your measurably increased cancer risk from a years-long adventure in a bath of ‘galactic cosmic rays.’ The good news? A Mars trip might not be “impossible!” “The space agencies could decide that the importance of a Mars mission would justify the waving of the the [safe] radiation exposure limit.” Woot. WHAT importance, again?