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No one has figured out safeguards against solar radiation. NASA does not permit any astronauts to live on the International Space Station for more than a year a
by trembonator 5y ago
No one has figured out safeguards against solar radiation. NASA does not permit any astronauts to live on the International Space Station for more than a year and the ISS is shielded by Earth’s Van Allen Belts which our moon does not have. Whoever lives on the moon will be exposed to elevated levels of radiation and develop irreversible cancer or radiation poisoning as a result until the fundamental problem is solved.
- credit_guy 5y agoLunar lava tubes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_lava_tube#Sites_for_human_habitats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_lava_tube#Sites_for_huma...
- LarryMade2 5y agoI envision that and them some sort of inflatable shell insterted into it to make a quick habitat... maybe some sort of hardener is activated upon inflation or filled in between outer layers... Yeah, lunar real estate will be one of the first things - Location. Location. Location.
- woodruffw 5y agoTo be specific: the exposure during a day of lunar living would be equivalent to ~2.6 days on the ISS, or ~200 days on Earth's surface[1]. And that's the normal dose, before we even begin to worry about solar events. [1]: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaz1334 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaz1334
- mlyle 5y ago> To be specific: the exposure during a day of lunar living would be equivalent to ~2.6 days on the ISS, or ~200 days on Earth's surface If we do nothing to shield occupants.
- woodruffw 5y agoYep, shielding will be critical. The paper linked above has this interesting note: > Settlements on the Moon will provide additional shielding because they will be buried beneath layers of lunar regolith. While this would decrease the dose rate from charged particles, the absolute contribution from neutrons is expected to increase for shielding constructed from in situ resources, as borne out by measurements with the Apollo 17 Lunar Neutron Probe Experiment. These showed that the flux of thermal and epithermal neutrons increases significantly up to a depth of approximately 150 g/cm2 (31). So plans to shield lunar occupants using the moon's own materials will need to compensate for the ionizing radiation that those materials are already emitting, separately from cosmic/solar radiation.
- mlyle 5y ago> So plans to shield lunar occupants using the moon's own materials will need to compensate for the ionizing radiation that those materials are already emitting, separately from cosmic/solar radiation. It's not really that they're emitting them "separately" -- they're radioactive (with mostly short half lives) largely because of solar bombardment. Thin shielding can paradoxically make things worse by converting high energy protons into more, lower energy neutrons. If your shielding is thick, the inner layers will rapidly become less radioactive (the important half lives are less than 30 days). The outer layers will keep getting hit by solar protons and creating more unstable elements. Another major concern in the long term: radon gas. One had better have an inner hull and never rely upon sintered regolith to hold atmosphere.
- rasz 5y ago>~200 days on Earth's surface Where? there is a big difference between Miami, Colorado, Guarapari, and finally Ramsar
- woodruffw 5y agoHere's the calculation based on the NRCP's 2009 estimates for the US[1]: the average US inhabitant is exposed to 3.11 mSv/year, or 3110 uSv/year. That's an average of 8.52 uSv/day, compared to 1369 uSv/day on the Lunar surface. For the US, that's a factor of ~155x, not the ~200x that I saw in popular media, so I'm not sure where they got the latter from. But "over 150 times the daily exposure of the average American" isn't fantastic. Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_radiation#Background_dose_rate_examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_radiation#Backgroun... has other numbers for "background only" exposure in various parts of the world. The US seems to be among the higher areas for latent exposure, so it's probably safe to say that the 155x number is on the lower side of things. [1]: https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/cosmic.html https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/cosmic.html
- rasz 5y agoso we are talking ~5x Ramsar https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11769138/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11769138/ where people live normal lives
- woodruffw 5y agon=35 for that particular study[1], which notes that results are preliminary and doesn't include any prescriptive language like "normal lives." The theory they advance is the people of Ramsar are demonstrating an adaptive response to large amounts of background radiation. But there's no evidence (or even theorization) that said adaptive response extends to fully mature adults. [1]: https://sci-hub.se/10.1097/00004032-200201000-00011 https://sci-hub.se/10.1097/00004032-200201000-00011
- ceejayoz 5y agoThat’s why you build in a lava tube, a permanently shadowed crater (bonus: ice!), or cover the base in regolith.
- dnautics 5y ago3d printed buildings. I'm not even kidding. I've been soft-offered a job to write software for this that might get deployed to space. I am seriously thinking about taking the job and using it to get into the astronaut program. It would be pretty badass to be the first person to build a permanent structure off the planet
- blhack 5y agoDO IT! That sounds so cool!
- quickthrower2 5y agoAlso is it possible to maintain muscle mass in space for over a year? What happens when you lose the bone density. Or could this been circumvented with a couple of hours of squats every day and other exercises using bands as resistance
- garmaine 5y agoSpin the spacecraft. Done.
- sbierwagen 5y agoIt is unknown if it will be that easy. For obvious reasons, there have been no long-term studies in partial gravity. If 0.05g stops bone loss, great. If a full 1.0g and nothing less is required, then that's going to be a really onerous design constraint.
- shagie 5y agoIf a full 1.0g is required, that also makes it a much more difficult challenge on the moon. Spinning a module of a space station in zero g is one thing... trying to get a portion of a moon lab at 0.16g to 1.0g is a different challenge.
- shkkmo 5y agoThe advantage I see on the moon is that you have local mass to use. Yoy can build a large, banked circular track underground ground and then add cars as you expand.
- sbierwagen 5y agoUh, if human habitation on the Moon requires living inside a centrifuge, then there won't be a human colony.
- 5y ago
- trailingComma 5y agoThe ISS doesn't have a moon to bury itself inside. You only have to go 2.5 meters down to provide the same level of protection as being on the surface of the earth.
- jazzyjackson 5y agoSounds good… do we still get to have skylights? edit: I’m genuinely curious if it’s possible to allow sunlight while blocking harmful radiation, our atmosphere does it, can a thick window do the job?
- trailingComma 5y agoSimulated skylights are probably possible, but you may have to go a bit deeper to create the space for an effective simulation.
- chii 5y agoMirrors, or even artificial sky lights are a thing.
- nicoburns 5y agoIf you want to live above ground and have other niceties then there's a great planet that's really close to the moon.
- fragmede 5y agoYes, but if all humans are on that one, then if there's a catastrophic problem there: Houston, we have a problem.
- nicoburns 5y agoNot one that’s likely to be solved by spreading to the moon. Personally I have much the same attitude about the eradication of the human race as I do about dying: it’s going to happen eventually, best to make out time here as good as possible rather than trying to extend it indefinitely at all costs. And giving up the earth seems like a huge cost to me.
- more_corn 5y agoLava tubes could help a lot.