Here are some notes on space radiation

• TRISH talk by Tony Slaba, PhD: “Red Risk School – Space Radiation Environment and Ground Based Simulations” (slides available here).
  • LEO = Low Earth Orbit, GCR = Galactic Cosmic Ray
  • Most solar particles can’t penetrate the Van Allen Belts, but solar storms can sometimes
  • Solar particle are important for interplanetary  flights.
    • Composed of low to medium energy protons.
    • Low enough energy to be shielded
  • GCRs originate in supernovae
    • Includes everything on the periodic table, fully ionized
    • Highly energetic
    • Continuous, omnipresent background in space.
    • Main biological risk
    • GCR proton flux peaks at about 300 MeV at about 200/MeV/cm^2/day, but extends all the way up to TeV.
    • GCR background depends ~factor of 2 on solar activity
      • High activiy-> high fields -> fewer particles.
    • Mars mission ~1 Sv
  • Main facility is the National Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL) at Brookhaven
    • Up to 1.5 GeV/n beams
    • Can rapidly switch between ions
      • ~30 beams/hr
  • Simulations
    • Actually get most radiation from low LET particles, because there are so many more of them.
    • Gathering most of their data with Hydrogen and Helium