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That’s certainly very humane of you, but also wrong. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/05/space-radiation-may-damage-astronauts-brains http://www.sciencemag.

That’s certainly very humane of you, but also wrong. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/05/space-radiation-may-damage-astronauts-brains http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/05/space-radiation-may-d... After letting the mice rest for 6 weeks, the team put them through a battery of cognitive tests, including a task that required the rodents to distinguish between familiar and novel objects, such as toys. The mice hammered by radiation were “severely compromised” on several measures compared with an unexposed control group, Limoli says. Control mice, for example, spent more time sniffing around a new item placed in their cages than investigating familiar objects—a sign that their ability to react to novelty was intact. Irradiated mice, in contrast, spent equal time exploring new and old items, suggesting their ability to learn and remember new information about their environment had been impaired. Talk of mars colonization is riddled with myopic assumptions about something we barely understand. Focusing on those few issues we may have in hand to the exclusion of the many critical unsolved problems is troubling.

cptaj 9y ago
They can just wear a helmet. Lead lined balaclava? They also mention that is not a showstopper and that it can potentially be countered with entertainment and exercise. It also remains to be seen what the effect is like on humans. Might be negligible on a mars trip.
- MikkoFinell 9y ago
  I believe the thickness of lead required for any significant protection would make the weight of the helmet unreasonable. Unless the exercise you mentioned consist only of weighted neck curls. A more realistic approach to mitigating the issue is in my opinion to have rotating crews. They would spend most of their time in underground shelters, and only some minor fraction of their time doing surface work. Advances in medicine, specifically in regard to cancer, along with minimizing exposure time, is what I believe will make the risk low enough to be within acceptable bounds.
  - logfromblammo 9y ago
    At 38% Earth's surface gravity, you might need to wear lead clothing all the time anyway, just to keep your bone strength and muscle tone.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    This is a much more reasonable idea once you're on Mars, and current research offers some hope that it would actually work. More worrying though is the trip to Mars, which would have a much higher exposure and require some really novel shielding. The best way for that to happen, short of a breakthrough in materials science, is to build the shield outside of our well, with materials we didn't have to lift. This is in large part why I think that Mars is continent upon offworld mining and construction industry, rather than the other way around.
valuearb 9y ago
I wasn't talking about mars colonization, I was talking about mars exploration. That study isn't going to deter the first explorers. Only about 10% of Magellan's expedition survived, and not Magellan.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  True, but a lot of people didn't exactly live long or good lives then, and explorers, far from just being daring people... were desperate. When I hear that Elon Musk is on the first one-way trip, I'll be a believer too. Until then, it's just too easy to contextualize the sacrifices of history, or the present, in ways that make it heroic rather than tragic.
  - emiliobumachar 9y ago
    A lot of people don't exactly live long or good lives now. They're typically not qualified for much of the labor needed in a colony, but that's another problem. We only need a tiny percentage of the eligible. Some people really have different priorities than confort and longevity. Many of them are risking their lives on Everest, for much less.
    - QAPereo 9y ago
      If the first mission to Mars is really full of explorers, mountaineers, and daring billionaires then as I said I will be a believer. If they’re full of desperate people not searching for longevity or comfort, but those same things for the families they leave behind, I will not believe. It strikes me as fundamentally wrong to accept that the world is full of desperate people, while also rationalizing away the morality of exploiting them. If there was no other way, as it frankly was in the age sail, and human lives simply had to be the currency of progress then so be it. We don’t live in those times, and we definitely have options other than sacrificing some people; they’re just more expensive, difficult options.

cptaj 9y ago

They can just wear a helmet. Lead lined balaclava? They also mention that is not a showstopper and that it can potentially be countered with entertainment and exercise. It also remains to be seen what the effect is like on humans. Might be negligible on a mars trip.

MikkoFinell 9y ago
I believe the thickness of lead required for any significant protection would make the weight of the helmet unreasonable. Unless the exercise you mentioned consist only of weighted neck curls. A more realistic approach to mitigating the issue is in my opinion to have rotating crews. They would spend most of their time in underground shelters, and only some minor fraction of their time doing surface work. Advances in medicine, specifically in regard to cancer, along with minimizing exposure time, is what I believe will make the risk low enough to be within acceptable bounds.
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  At 38% Earth's surface gravity, you might need to wear lead clothing all the time anyway, just to keep your bone strength and muscle tone.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  This is a much more reasonable idea once you're on Mars, and current research offers some hope that it would actually work. More worrying though is the trip to Mars, which would have a much higher exposure and require some really novel shielding. The best way for that to happen, short of a breakthrough in materials science, is to build the shield outside of our well, with materials we didn't have to lift. This is in large part why I think that Mars is continent upon offworld mining and construction industry, rather than the other way around.

valuearb 9y ago

I wasn't talking about mars colonization, I was talking about mars exploration. That study isn't going to deter the first explorers. Only about 10% of Magellan's expedition survived, and not Magellan.

QAPereo 9y ago
True, but a lot of people didn't exactly live long or good lives then, and explorers, far from just being daring people... were desperate. When I hear that Elon Musk is on the first one-way trip, I'll be a believer too. Until then, it's just too easy to contextualize the sacrifices of history, or the present, in ways that make it heroic rather than tragic.
- emiliobumachar 9y ago
  A lot of people don't exactly live long or good lives now. They're typically not qualified for much of the labor needed in a colony, but that's another problem. We only need a tiny percentage of the eligible. Some people really have different priorities than confort and longevity. Many of them are risking their lives on Everest, for much less.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    If the first mission to Mars is really full of explorers, mountaineers, and daring billionaires then as I said I will be a believer. If they’re full of desperate people not searching for longevity or comfort, but those same things for the families they leave behind, I will not believe. It strikes me as fundamentally wrong to accept that the world is full of desperate people, while also rationalizing away the morality of exploiting them. If there was no other way, as it frankly was in the age sail, and human lives simply had to be the currency of progress then so be it. We don’t live in those times, and we definitely have options other than sacrificing some people; they’re just more expensive, difficult options.