CATCHING SOME RAYS
Discovery.com recently had an article about the latest hitch in manned travel to Mars.
No, it's not America's inability to build a shuttle that's less fragile than a kite made from balsa wood and wet Kleenex.
It's not the recent report that astronauts were going into space drunk.
Or spending their "Earth time" plotting the murder of their ex-lover's lover.
No, this one is actually pretty good. It's Cosmic Rays, and they're powerful enough to penetrate both the shuttle walls and the astronaut's flesh. Which is bad news for the astronauts because that's where they keep most of their important organs. When astronauts are on Earth, or the Moon, or even on Mars, many of these rays will be blocked by the planetary body. But in the actual space part of space, the cosmic rays are able to come from any angle. This would be less of a problem if NASA had taken my recommendation about using convicts to populate the space program, but instead they're still using Eagle Scouts, MENSA members, the occasional aged Senators and other people deemed as "important" and "contributing members of society" who shouldn't be bombarded constantly by poisonous space radiation.
Still, are we being too paranoid about all of this? Sure, Cosmic Rays can give you cancer, but aren't there benefits as well? Let's not forget these four:
Just, uh, you know, ignore the giant monster with the orange, craggy skin. After all, there's only a one-in-four chance that'll happen.
No, it's not America's inability to build a shuttle that's less fragile than a kite made from balsa wood and wet Kleenex.
It's not the recent report that astronauts were going into space drunk.
Or spending their "Earth time" plotting the murder of their ex-lover's lover.
No, this one is actually pretty good. It's Cosmic Rays, and they're powerful enough to penetrate both the shuttle walls and the astronaut's flesh. Which is bad news for the astronauts because that's where they keep most of their important organs. When astronauts are on Earth, or the Moon, or even on Mars, many of these rays will be blocked by the planetary body. But in the actual space part of space, the cosmic rays are able to come from any angle. This would be less of a problem if NASA had taken my recommendation about using convicts to populate the space program, but instead they're still using Eagle Scouts, MENSA members, the occasional aged Senators and other people deemed as "important" and "contributing members of society" who shouldn't be bombarded constantly by poisonous space radiation.
Still, are we being too paranoid about all of this? Sure, Cosmic Rays can give you cancer, but aren't there benefits as well? Let's not forget these four:
Just, uh, you know, ignore the giant monster with the orange, craggy skin. After all, there's only a one-in-four chance that'll happen.
posted by Matt Worzala at
2:07 PM
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