How to protect yourself from radiation in space
The Australian National University (ANU) has developed a new nanomaterial that can reflect or transmit light on demand and is temperature controlled. According to the authors of the study, this opens the door for technologies that protect astronauts in space from harmful radiation.
Head of Research Mohsen Rahmani The ANU said the material was so thin that hundreds of layers could be applied to the tip of the needle, which could be applied to any surface, including space suits.
Dr. Rahmani told Science Daily.
Added Dr. Xu from the Center for Nonlinear Physics at the ANU School of Physics and Engineering.
Sample of nanomaterial from ANU under testing
Career limit in millisieverts
This is another overall and fairly long series of ideas to combat and protect against the harmful cosmic rays that humans are exposed to outside the Earth's atmosphere.
Living organisms feel bad in space. Essentially, NASA defines "career limits" for astronauts, in terms of the maximum amount of radiation they can absorb. This limit 800 to 1200 millisievertsdepending on age, gender and other factors. This dose corresponds to the maximum risk of developing cancer - 3%. NASA doesn't allow more risk.
The average inhabitant of the Earth is exposed to approx. 6 millisieverts of radiation per year, which is the result of natural exposures such as radon gas and granite countertops, as well as unnatural exposures such as x-rays.
Space missions, especially those outside the Earth's magnetic field, are exposed to high levels of radiation, including radiation from random solar storms that can damage bone marrow and organs. So if we want to travel in space, we need to somehow deal with the harsh reality of hard cosmic rays.
Radiation exposure also increases the risk of astronauts developing several types of cancer, genetic mutations, damage to the nervous system, and even cataracts. Over the last few decades of the space program, NASA has collected radiation exposure data for all of its astronauts.
We currently have no developed protection against lethal cosmic rays. Suggested solutions vary from use clay from asteroids like covers, after underground houses on mars, made from Martian regolith, but the concepts are pretty exotic nonetheless.
NASA is investigating the system Personal radiation protection for interplanetary flights (PERSEO). Assumes the use of water as a material for development, safe from radiation. overalls. The prototype is being tested aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Scientists are testing, for example, whether an astronaut can comfortably wear a spacesuit filled with water and then empty it without losing water, which is an extremely valuable resource in space.
The Israeli company StemRad would like to solve the problem by offering radiation shield. NASA and the Israel Space Agency have signed an agreement under which the AstroRad radiation protection vest will be used during the NASA EM-1 mission around the Moon and at the International Space Station in 2019.
Like Chernobyl birds
Since life is known to have originated on a planet well shielded from cosmic radiation, terrestrial organisms are not very capable of surviving without this shield. Each type of development of a new natural immunity, including radiation, requires a long time. However, there are peculiar exceptions.
The article "Long live radio resistance!" on the Oncotarget website
A 2014 Science News article described how most of the organisms in the Chernobyl area were damaged due to high levels of radiation. However, it turned out that in some bird populations this is not the case. Some of them have developed resistance to radiation, resulting in reduced levels of DNA damage and the number of dangerous free radicals.
The idea that animals not only adapt to radiation, but can even develop a favorable response to it, is for many the key to understanding how humans can adapt to environments with high levels of radiation, such as a spacecraft, an alien planet, or interstellar space. .
In February 2018, an article appeared in Oncotarget magazine under the slogan "Vive la radiorésistance!" (“Long live radioimmunity!”). It concerned research in the field of radiobiology and biogerontology aimed at increasing human resistance to radiation in conditions of deep space colonization. Among the authors of the article, whose goal was to outline a "road map" to achieve a state of human immunity to radio emission, allowing our species to explore space without fear, are specialists from NASA's Ames Research Center.
- said Joao Pedro de Magalhães, co-author of the article, representative of the American Research Foundation for Biogerontology.
The ideas circulating in the community of supporters of the "adaptation" of the human body to the cosmos sound somewhat fantastic. One of them, for example, will be the replacement of the main components of our body's proteins, the elements hydrogen and carbon, with their heavier isotopes, deuterium and C-13 carbon. There are other, slightly more familiar methods, such as drugs for immunization with radiation therapy, gene therapy, or active tissue regeneration at the cellular level.
Of course, there is a completely different trend. He says that if space is so hostile to our biology, let's just stay on Earth and let machines that are much less harmful to radiation be explored.
However, this kind of thinking seems to be too much in conflict with old people's dreams of space travel.
