30.05 Astronauts on Mars Mission Face Dangerous Radiation Exposure - Study
WASHINGTON, May 30 (by Karin Zeitvogel for RIA Novosti) Flying to Mars in the spacecraft available today would expose astronauts to radiation levels that could significantly boost their risk of contracting cancer, a study published Thursday said.
In terms of accumulated dose, its like getting a whole-body CT scan once every five or six days, said Cary Zeitlin, a researcher at the Colorado-based Southwest Research Institutes (SwRI) space science and engineering division, and lead author of the study published in the journal Science.
Researchers from the SwRI, NASA, the German Aerospace Center and Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany used measurements collected by a Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) on board the Mars Science Laboratory that delivered the Curiosity rover to the Red Planet to determine how much radiation astronauts would be exposed to during the 348-million-mile (560-million-kilometer) journey to Mars.
RAD measured radiation inside the spacecraft for 253 days, focusing on two types of radiation exposure that could pose serious health risks to astronauts in deep space.
These were long-term, low-dose exposure to galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) and short-term exposure to solar energetic particles (SEPs) produced by solar flares from the sun and coronal mass ejections such as those which were captured in stunning images earlier this month.
The data collected by RAD shows that an astronaut or cosmonaut would be exposed to around .66 Sieverts of radiation during a roundtrip to Mars with rockets and spacecraft with the protection used today.
One Sievert of radiation exposure is associated with a five percent increase in the risk of dying of cancer, the researchers note. The same level has been set by several space agencies, including Russias, Canadas and the European Space Agency, as the maximum allowable exposure level during an astronauts or cosmonauts career.
