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Ok, so cosmic rays represent 20x the radiation dose of solar flares. That data is meaningless without relating the values to actual health impacts on human bein

Ok, so cosmic rays represent 20x the radiation dose of solar flares. That data is meaningless without relating the values to actual health impacts on human beings, which the authors don't even attempt to do. Would a year in space represent a 10% lifetime increase in the risk of cancer? I have no idea and neither do these authors. This is childish alarmism.

Arbalest 7y ago
From a risk management perspective, with the little that we do know, an increase in cosmic ray dose is indeed a concern. That we don't know the exact % isn't all that relevant, we know enough to know the baseline dosage was already substantial enough, that any increase is not negligible.
rcfox 7y ago
I'm no radiation expert, but I have referred to https://xkcd.com/radiation/ https://xkcd.com/radiation/ a few times. The symptoms they describe of a solar flare would, according to the chart, put it at around 400 - 4000 mSv. I'm not sure it's correct to say that cosmic rays are 20x worse than solar flares since they're over a much longer period of time and the effects of radiation are related to both the intensity and duration of exposure.
ChuckMcM 7y ago
Perhaps the authors of the paper made the assumption that the reader would already be familiar with the effects of ionizing radiation on humans? For example, this presentation by NASA (https://ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/RoR_WWW/SWREDI/2013/Evans-SWREDIBootCamp2013-SEPLecture-FINAL.pdf https://ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/RoR_WWW/SWREDI/2013/Evans-SWREDIB...) on Solar Energetic Particles (or SEPs) relates how one can translate from pfu (proton flux units which are used in the article linked) and biological effects as part of the solar storm intensity scale (slide 15). Perhaps if someone was already familiar with the NASA research into SEPs, they would read this paper/article and say "Hmm, here is some evidence that Cosmic rays are not something that can be assumed to be negligible when evaluating radiation exposure risk."

Arbalest 7y ago

From a risk management perspective, with the little that we do know, an increase in cosmic ray dose is indeed a concern. That we don't know the exact % isn't all that relevant, we know enough to know the baseline dosage was already substantial enough, that any increase is not negligible.

rcfox 7y ago

I'm no radiation expert, but I have referred to https://xkcd.com/radiation/ https://xkcd.com/radiation/ a few times. The symptoms they describe of a solar flare would, according to the chart, put it at around 400 - 4000 mSv. I'm not sure it's correct to say that cosmic rays are 20x worse than solar flares since they're over a much longer period of time and the effects of radiation are related to both the intensity and duration of exposure.

ChuckMcM 7y ago

Perhaps the authors of the paper made the assumption that the reader would already be familiar with the effects of ionizing radiation on humans? For example, this presentation by NASA (https://ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/RoR_WWW/SWREDI/2013/Evans-SWREDIBootCamp2013-SEPLecture-FINAL.pdf https://ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/RoR_WWW/SWREDI/2013/Evans-SWREDIB...) on Solar Energetic Particles (or SEPs) relates how one can translate from pfu (proton flux units which are used in the article linked) and biological effects as part of the solar storm intensity scale (slide 15). Perhaps if someone was already familiar with the NASA research into SEPs, they would read this paper/article and say "Hmm, here is some evidence that Cosmic rays are not something that can be assumed to be negligible when evaluating radiation exposure risk."