8 ms·
Excessive radiation can also kill plants and animals
by marrone12 9y ago
Excessive radiation can also kill plants and animals
- QAPereo 9y agoEven before it kills them, it definitely ruins their reproductive capacity, which is going to be critical offworld.
- emiliobumachar 9y agoWe could have a breeding population in an expensive shielded environment, and take most of their young to grow in a cheap, more radioactive environment.
- QAPereo 9y agoNow that’s a really interesting idea! Add in a bank of shielded frozen embryos and sperm and yes, I can see your point.
- adrianN 9y agoIs the radiation on Mars excessive? Quick googling suggests 10-20 rem per year, or about half that of the ISS. As far as I know plants do grow on the ISS.
- gozur88 9y agoPlants are pretty tolerant of solar radiation. Far more so than humans. In any event, what you'd probably do is use reflected light to filter out high energy particles.
- aetherson 9y agoBackground radiation in Mars is way lower than would be necessary to kill plants and, like, it might increase cancer rates in animals, but the kind of animals we'd want to breed there have short lifespans and we don't care if they get a few tumors.