Speaker
Description
Space radiation is generally acknowledged as the main health risk for human exploration of the Solar system. Beyond Low-Earth Orbit (BLEO) missions expose crews to increasingly high fluxes of cosmic rays, including protons and heavy ions. The high uncertainty on the biological effect of the extraterrestrial radiation makes it difficult to design countermeasures. Flight experiments have provided useful data on cosmic ray spectrum composition and dosimetry, but very limited information on late stochastic effects. Most of our knowledge on biological effects of space radiation comes from ground-based experiments at accelerators. We will review the activities in this field under way in the US (sponsored by NASA at the Brookhaven National Laboratory) and in Europe (supported by ESA at the SIS18 synchrotron at GSI) and the impact of this research on the missions to the Moon and Mars. In particular, we will show that the current dose limits for BLEO missions are inadequate and do not allow International missions.
