Mark,

I read your earlier post "GB & ME Answer Cosmic Ray Questions" and pretty much agree with it. Cosmic rays are not really effected by the magnetosphere that much because they're going almost at the speed-of-light. The magnetosphere mainly shields against the solar wind. I remember reading that a cosmic ray's velocity is so close to the speed-of-light that the relative time of transit from the Andromeda Galaxy to the Milky Way would be on the order of a minutes. Your typical cosmic ray is a stripped helium nucleus which I believe you mentioned somewhere. The big problem with cosmic rays are the secondary particles. That's why a shield made of water or plastic is better than heavy metal. It's also better to have no shield at all rather than one which is too thin.

I didn't get involved in your earlier discussion concerning cosmic rays because it was with Grondine. He just makes stuff up (or imagines some nonsense to be true) so there really isn't much point in arguing with him. Apologies again if you felt I was providing adequate backup.

Gary