Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship'

Re:Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship' by JumpCrisscross on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @10:31AM (#23987059)

> those people would have accumulated enormous radiation dosages over the duration of the flight

What is this based on? One of the chief contributors to the mass of a Mars voyage is shielding.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship' by spacemark on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @01:50PM (#23989593)

You can't really shield against galactic cosmic rays (too high energy, would require far too much mass), which make up approximately 95% of the dose.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/340/6136/1080.abstrac...

*Edit - but the comment higher up isn't right either, that most Mars-bound astronauts will have decreased lives. The paper linked above estimates 3% of astronauts to die from cancer caused by the trip (assuming no exposure on the surface of Mars, meaning they're in the ground).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Airbus to build 'first interplanetary cargo ship' by jerf on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @02:10PM (#23989816)

And if the worst thing that happens to early Mars astronauts is "a 3% increase in the chance of dying from cancer someday", they will ecstatic. The list of more pressing risks is long.

[ Parent | on HN ]