[ RadSafe ] Mission to Mars - Long story short

[Hansen, Richard (CONTR)]

The "Ionizing Radiation Dose Ranges" charts from the US Department of Energy, Low Dose Radiation Research Program (www.lowdose.energy.gov) show an estimated dose of about 120 rem (1.2 Sv) for a 3-year Mars mission "with current shielding." I am having troubling accessing their website this morning, so I attached the rem version of the chart. They also have the chart in units of sieverts. As for increased dose during a maximum solar activity, I don't know, but as a point of reference, these charts show the dose from a "Charged particle event
(Solar flare) dose on moon, no shielding" can range up to 200 rem (2 Sv). I do not have information on the reference(s) DOE used for these values. 

Note: These charts were constructed with the intention of providing a simple, user-friendly, "order-of-magnitude" reference for radiation exposures of interest to scientists, managers, and the general public.

File: DOE BER Dose Ranges Chart (rem) June 2010.pdf (118 KB)


Rick Hansen
Senior Scientist
CTOS - Center for Radiological/Nuclear Training at the Nevada National Security Site
National Security Technologies, LLC
Contractor to the United States Department of Energy
hansenrg at nv.doe.gov
www.ctosnnsa.org

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Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2011 18:43:06 -0500
From: "Alston, Chris" <ALSTONCJ at gunet.georgetown.edu>
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Mission to Mars - Long story short
To: "The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing
	List"	<radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu>

Folks

The value i remember, from an NCRP report, is 100 rem to an astronaut for the two-year round-trip to Mars.  What that value might be (or if that assumes) at maximum solar activity, I do not know.

I think that it would be irresponsible beyond belief to send humans there, before sending robots.  Regardless, we are basically broke, and there are much higher priorities to which our monies should be allocated.

Happily, I await the slings and arrows.

Cheers
cja


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