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Are there any health concerns about using X-ray constantly for communications? For example, should astronauts performing EVAs take care to avoid the area around
by kijin 7y ago
Are there any health concerns about using X-ray constantly for communications? For example, should astronauts performing EVAs take care to avoid the area around the antenna? Or is there enough ionizing radiation in space already that adding some X-ray in the mix won't make any difference?
- emilfihlman 7y agoIt depends on the dose, probably not really a thing to be concerned about.
- Causality1 7y agoThat would depend on the transmit power, but in short, you wouldn't want to be outside the vehicle for a long time when the transmitter is on. A typical x-ray machine emits about twenty watts of x-ray power when in use with a typical shutter speed of 1/10 to 1/2 of a second. There's no data about how much power NASA is using in this experiment or how much a production model transmitter would use, but ground-to-ISS transmission over FM can be done with a 25-watt transmitter. Now, the x-ray transmitter wouldn't be focused the right way to send maximum radiation into an astronaut and it would have a reduced duty cycle because it's not just a simple x-ray flashlight, but giving it an hour-long bear hug while it's in use would be a very bad idea. Of course the most relevant point is that the vast majority of spaceships don't have humans on them.