A new paper written by an international group of space scientists details the threat of particle radiation on future human colonists of Mars. Find out more at 🚀 Engineering
A new paper written by an international group of space scientists details the threat of particle radiation on future human colonists of Mars. The findings, which serve as a guide for future missions, show that more than four years on the Red Planet would exceed safe exposure to radiation for humans,One of the many great risks to future human Mars explorers comes in the form of particle radiation from the Sun as well as distant stars and galaxies.
The researchers explain that a Mars mission longer than four years long would expose astronauts to dangerously high levels of radiation, the majority of which would come from outside our solar system. To reach their findings, the team from UCLA, MIT, Moscow’s Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, and GFZ Potsdam combined geophysical models of particle radiation with models of the effects of radiation on humans and on spacecraft.Space Weathergives precise indicators for how a future mission to Mars should be timed. With sufficient shielding on the Mars-bound spacecraft, a human Mars mission should be shorter than four years to keep the astronauts safe, the study says.
As a crewed spaceflight to Mars is expected to take approximately nine months with existing technologies, it would be possible to send humans to Mars and back in less than two years, "This study shows that while space radiation imposes strict limitations on how heavy the spacecraft can be and the time of launch, and it presents technological difficulties for human missions to Mars, such a mission is viable," Shprits explained.