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I read the article a bit quickly, so maybe I missed it, but I don’t believe radiation exposure was addressed. Talk to almost anyone at NASA and they will cite that as a showstopper. Zubrin does address the issue, and says the increased cancer risk is on the order of 1%, with data to back up his claims. The best I can get out of NASA is that it is somewhere between 2 and 20%, with most of the “unknowns” due to lack of human data on the effects of protons and heavy ions.
However, instead of a all-out push to eliminate the unknowns, most at NASA seemed resigned to bet everything on advanced propulsion, which might create new problems even as it resolves others. In doing so, they are content to push the earliest humans-to-Mars date from 10 years out to maybe 30, all to minimize a risk that at worst is probably equivalent to that faced by a smoker.
If anyone in today’s astronaut corps would shy away from that risk and instead relegate that opportunity to the next generation, then I would say they don’t have “the right stuff”. However, I don’t believe that is the case. I think the problem has more to do with managers that have a skewed sense of what risks are worth taking, and which ones are not.
If we are to get to Mars anytime soon, the issue of radiation exposure — more than any other — needs to be tackled head on.
I read the article a bit quickly, so maybe I missed it, but I don’t believe radiation exposure was addressed. Talk to almost anyone at NASA and they will cite that as a showstopper. Zubrin does address the issue, and says the increased cancer risk is on the order of 1%, with data to back up his claims. The best I can get out of NASA is that it is somewhere between 2 and 20%, with most of the “unknowns” due to lack of human data on the effects of protons and heavy ions.
However, instead of a all-out push to eliminate the unknowns, most at NASA seemed resigned to bet everything on advanced propulsion, which might create new problems even as it resolves others. In doing so, they are content to push the earliest humans-to-Mars date from 10 years out to maybe 30, all to minimize a risk that at worst is probably equivalent to that faced by a smoker.
If anyone in today’s astronaut corps would shy away from that risk and instead relegate that opportunity to the next generation, then I would say they don’t have “the right stuff”. However, I don’t believe that is the case. I think the problem has more to do with managers that have a skewed sense of what risks are worth taking, and which ones are not.
If we are to get to Mars anytime soon, the issue of radiation exposure — more than any other — needs to be tackled head on.