Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Re: Mars Odyssey reveals radiation dose around planet

There is still legitimate concern about solar flares
Larry J — (archived)

A single solar flare releases a lot of radiation. Most studies that I've seen suggest doing things like having a extra heavily shielded portion of the spacecraft (a safe haven) that the crew can enter in the event of solar flares and orienting the spacecraft so that most of the vehicle mass is between the crew and the sun. The orientation technique wouldn't work with Mars Direct's tether technique, so you'd have to either depend solely on shielding or go without shielding and hope that nothing bad will happen during the mission.

Earlier Mars studies that I saw suggested making the safe haven as a small, lead shielded vault. That's a heavy solution. One way to reduce the shielding weight might be to surround the safe haven with the ship's water supply. You have to carry water anyway, so why not make it perform double duty?

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