Storms from the Sun The Emerging Science of Space Weather (2002) / Chapter Skim
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9. Houston, We Could Have a Problem
9. Houston, We Could Have a Problem
Pages 137-152
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From page 137... ...
spectacular resurgence of solar activity as the staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Aclministration s (NOAA) Space Environment Center caller!
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From page 138... ...
During solar proton events, these energetic particles travel from the Sun to the Earth within 20 to 30 minutes, and they can stream into the magnetosphere for hours. Upon reaching Earth, some of these particles spiral down Earth's magnetic field lines, reaching the upper layers of the atmosphere.
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From page 139... ...
The intense radiation and swarm of particles from the flare probably would have been fatal to astronauts of the Apollo missions had they been in space at the time. Courtesy of Big Bear Solar Observatory/New Jersey Institute of Technology.
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From page 140... ...
"Although a great deal of thought and effort had gone into planning the Apollo missions, it was mostly luck that the crew was not subjected to excessive radiation exposure," said Gautam Badhwar, NASA's former chief research scientist for space radiation at the Johnson Space Center.i "If they were in the command module, it would have been dangerous but not life threatening. But there was not much shielding in the lunar module, probably not much better than a space suit.
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From page 141... ...
eyes. Within eight hours the solar protons wouic!
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From page 142... ...
Solar proton events are significantly harcler to predict. First of all, not every sunspot group produces a flare or coronal mass ejection, ant!
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From page 143... ...
division of cells that we know as cancer. "Any racliation exposure results in some risk," says Mike Golightly, who leacis the Space Racliation Analysis Group at NASA's Johnson Space Flight Center, the team that monitors space weather activity cluring space shuttle ant!
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From page 144... ...
And it is a risk that astronauts knowingly take, inasmuch as they are briefed before every mission about space radiation, how much of a dose they can expect for any given flight, and where they stand with regard to total lifetime exposure to radiation. However, Golightly notes that some research suggests that radiation encountered in space may be more effective at causing biological damage than the gamma rays and X rays encountered by workers on Earth.
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From page 145... ...
On Russia's Mir space station, cosmonauts received a significant increase in radiation dose during the solar particle events. According to Badhwar, the total increase in cosmonaut exposure was about 6 or 7 rem, a dose equivalent to 100 to 150 days of additional radiation exposure.
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From page 146... ...
Since the space shuttle rarely flies higher than 42 clegreesabout the latitucle of New York City ant! since the largest storms from the Sun occur only a few times per solar cycle, shuttle flights are usually pretty safe from space weather.
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From page 147... ...
But according to George Siscoe, a Boston University physicist and chair of the NRC panel, "an unofficial NASA flight rule specifies that changes in flight plans must be baser! on current data that reflect the weather immecliately arounc!
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From page 148... ...
It also recommended that flight directors ignore the "real-time, onsite" rule and instead rely on the Space Radiation Analysis Group and NOAA's Space Environment Center to provide specific information about the incoming space weather and its potential effects. Finally, NASA, NOAA, and other groups should convene a meeting and find some funding to gather more and better data and to develop more useful, health-specific models of the radiation environment.
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From page 149... ...
"The astronauts are going to have to stay on the Martian surface for as long as a year-and-a-half," Badhwar said, "so they must be healthy or the mission is in real trouble." So as engineers, architects, and doctors figure out how to fly the crew to Mars and how to keep them well fed and mentally stable, physicists must figure out how to keep them from being irradiated to death.3 0~0 During that October 1989 solar proton event that sent the shuttle astronauts into hiding within the spacecraft, special sensors that measure cosmic radiation were triggered on a Concorde supersonic airliner. Though the airplane flies much lower in the atmosphere and well below the allegedly radioactive parts of Earth's space, the passengers received the equivalent of a chest X ray from the solar protons.
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From page 150... ...
In the United States, the FAA published a directive in 1994 stating: "Air carrier crew members are occupationally exposed to low doses of ionizing radiation from cosmic radiation and from air shipments of radioactive material.... It is recommended that workers occupationally exposed to ionizing radiation receive exposure (to the issue)
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From page 151... ...
Racliation levels in a jetliner are occasionally so high that if it was a nuclear power plant, the levels wouicl require signs warning employees not to spend any more time in the area than necessary to clo their jobs." Statistics show that the racliation exposure among airline crews is far from lethal, ant! in most cases the exposure floes not exceec!
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