Radiation Analysis for Moon and Mars Missions

TL;DR

This paper analyzes radiation risks for Moon and Mars missions, assessing doses during Apollo 11 and proposing a model to estimate future mission radiation exposure based on flight duration, highlighting ongoing safety challenges.

Contribution

It introduces a mathematical model to estimate radiation doses for Mars missions by adjusting flight duration, considering solar activity and shielding effects.

Findings

Apollo 11 radiation dose was influenced by a quiet Sun.

The model can estimate Mars mission doses by changing flight duration.

Radiation risk remains significant despite shielding advancements.

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of the radiation aspects of manned space flight to Moon and Mars. The expected ionizing radiation dose for an astronaut is assessed along the Apollo 11 flight path to the Moon. With the two dose values, the expected and the measured total dose, the radiation shielding and the activity of the Sun are estimated. To judge the risk or safety margin the radiation effects on humans are opposed. The radiation from the Sun has to be set to zero in the computer model to achieve the published radiation dose value of the Apollo 11 flight. Galactic and cosmic particles have not been modelled either. The Apollo 11 astronauts must have been lucky that during their flight the Sun was totally quiet in the solar maximum year 1969 - and also their colleagues of the subsequent Apollo flights, i.e. until 1972, where the published dose values still require a quiet Sun. The here built mathematical model allows assessing the total dose of a journey to Mars by only changing the flight duration. Even if in the meantime much thicker and/or active radiation shielding is proposed the radiation risk of manned space flight to Moon and Mars remains still huge.