Space Radiation: Astronauts: Cancer:

[beecee]

https://www.space.com/astronauts-cancer-space-radiation-risk.html

Space Radiation Doesn't Seem to Be Causing Astronauts to Die from Cancer, Study Finds:

By Rachael Rettner 2 days ago Human Spaceflight 

Outer space is a notoriously harsh environment, exposing astronauts to high levels of radiation. And radiation exposure can increase cancer and heart disease rates in earthbound humans.

But a new study has some good news: Space radiation doesn't seem to increase astronauts' risk of death from cancer or heart disease, at least not at the doses they experienced during historical missions. Still, longer missions — such a mission to Mars — will likely come with much greater radiation doses that could pose larger health risks, the authors said.

Space travel exposes the body to higher levels of ionizing radiation than those typically experienced on Earth. And at high doses, that radiation has been tied not just to cancer and heart disease, but to a host of other health problems as well.

more at link.....

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Interesting results to say the least....

But, [1] Are these studies too small for any valid conclusion to be arrived at? [2] Most of these would be from the ISS, so are the studies any indication of radiation further from Earth and/or for longer periods? 

 

[Endy0816]

ISS is still within the Earth's magnetic field.

Estimated astronauts will receive 60% of their career long dose limit just going there and back.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/explorers-will-face-dangerous-amounts-radiation-their-trip-mars-180970384/

 I'd like to see some initial guinea pig missions further out. I'm sure what's the best way to go about that but definitely needs to get done.

[swansont]

Unfortunately the article doesn't actually give the dose values of the astronauts or cancer mortality rates for the general population. Plus it's still a situation where small-number statistics can be a problem.

 

This says ISS astronaut exposure rate is 4.4-10.5 rads per year (IIRC rad=rem for gamma exposure, but there is a proportionality constant you need to apply for massive particles)

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=1013

Radiation workers are limited to 5 rem of dose per year in the US, so that's probably comparable to what most astronauts get, given that very few of them stay on the ISS for anything close to a year. So they're in a situation like other people with increased exposure, but nothing egregious.

[Curious layman]

18 minutes ago, Endy0816 said:

I'd like to see some initial guinea pig missions further out. I'm sure what's the best way to go about that but definitely needs to get done.

Hopefully this will happen sooner rather than later, especially with the new focus on the moon. But now Trumps changed his mind about the moon I don't know. 

Trump seems to just like the idea of being the person responsible for putting someone on mars (in his eyes), His plan seems to be based to much around his ego for it to be successful to me. That's why he keeps changing his mind.

He's just slowing down the inevitable  though. I definitely believe we're on the start of a new revolution in technology and Engineering (quantum computing, nano tech, fusion, Graphene, space tourism etc).

I find all this interest by governments and all the research into space travel really exciting personally. I can't wait for manned missions in the Orion spacecraft past the moon to start. Then we can start to get more up to date information.