[ RadSafe ] Sickening Solar Flare

[conrad]

You are correct, According to DOD, the ld-50-60 goes from 450 to about
600 cgy with medical treatment

My source is FM 4-02.283/NTRP 4-02.21/AFMAN 44-161(I)/MCRP 4-11.1B

Treatment of Nuclear and Radiological Casualties

I don't agree that 300 rem over several weeks would have "little effect"

Conrad

-----Original Message-----
From: Bernard Cohen [mailto:blc+ at pitt.edu] 
Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2005 8:26 AM
To: Maury Siskel
Cc: RadiatSafety
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Sickening Solar Flare


Is this piece correct in saying that LD-50 is 300 rem? It used to be 450

rem.

Maury Siskel wrote:

> Here is an excerpt from the NASA story about a recent very high energy
> solar flare. The HPs among you can comment on the accuracy of NASAs 
> account, but this seems a constructive example of  desirable 
> communication with the public which provides meaningful comparisons. 
> Additionally, it is, I think, an intrinsically interesting story 
> containing a couple neat photos.
>
> http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/27jan_solarflares.htm
>
> And just for the fun of it, here is another site that some of you will
> enjoy:
>
> http://science.nasa.gov/temp/StationLoc.html
>
> Cheers,
> Maury&Dog        maurysis at ev1.net
>
> =================
> The Jan. 20th proton storm was by some measures the biggest since
> 1989. It was particularly rich in high-speed protons packing more than

> 100 million electron volts (100 MeV) of energy. Such protons can 
> burrow through 11 centimeters of water. A thin-skinned spacesuit would

> have offered little resistance.
>
> "An astronaut caught outside when the storm hit would've gotten sick,"
> says Francis Cucinotta, NASA's radiation health officer at the Johnson

> Space Center. At first, he'd feel fine, but a few days later symptoms 
> of radiation sickness would appear: vomiting, fatigue, low blood 
> counts. These symptoms might persist for days.
>
> Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS), by the way, were
> safe. The ISS is heavily shielded, plus the station orbits Earth 
> inside our planet's protective magnetic field. "The crew probably 
> absorbed no more than 1 rem," says Cucinotta.
>
> One rem, short for Roentgen Equivalent Man, is the radiation dose that
> causes the same injury to human tissue as 1 roentgen of x-rays. A 
> typical diagnostic CAT scan, the kind you might get to check for 
> tumors, delivers about 1 rem [ref 
> <http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q708.html>]. So for the crew of 
> the ISS, the Jan. 20th proton storm was no worse than a trip to the 
> doctor on Earth.
>
> On the Moon, Cucinotta estimates, an astronaut protected by no more
> than a space suit would have absorbed about 50 rem of ionizing 
> radiation. That's enough to cause radiation sickness. "But it would 
> not have been fatal," he adds.
>
> <>To die, you'd need to absorb, suddenly, 300 rem or more. The key
> word is suddenly. You can get 300 rem spread out over a number of days

> or weeks with little effect. Spreading the dose gives the body time to

> repair and replace its own damaged cells. But if that 300 rem comes 
> all at once ... "we estimate that 50% of people exposed would die 
> within 60 days without medical care," says Cucinotta.
> ===============
> _______________________________________________
> You are currently subscribed to the radsafe mailing list
> radsafe at radlab.nl
>
> For information on how to subscribe/unsubscribe and other settings
> visit: http://radlab.nl/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/radsafe