In this Sept. 2, 2020 file photo, the full moon shines surrounded by clouds in the outskirts of Frankfurt, Germany. Future moon explorers will face ultrahazardous radiation levels. That's the conclusion of a new study published by Chinese and German scientists Friday, Sept. 25. The researchers say astronauts on the moon will be bombarded with two to three times more radiation than astronauts currently circling Earth aboard the International Space Station.(AP Photo/Michael Probst, File)
By Marcia Dunn
Future moon explorers will be bombarded with two to three times more radiation than astronauts aboard the International Space Station, a health hazard that will require thick-walled shelters for protection, scientists reported Friday.
China’s lander on the far side of the moon is providing the first full measurements of radiation exposure from the lunar surface, vital information for NASA, and others aiming to send astronauts to the moon, the study noted.
A Chinese-German team reported on the radiation data collected by the lander — named Chang’e 4 for the Chinese moon goddess — in the U.S. journal Science Advances.
“This is an immense achievement in the sense that now we have a data set which we can use to benchmark our radiation" and better understand the potential risk to people on the moon, said Thomas Berger, a physicist with the German Space Agency's medicine institute.
Astronauts would get 200 to 1,000 times more radiation on the moon than what we experience on Earth — or five to 10 times more than passengers on a trans-Atlantic airline flight, noted Robert Wimmer-Schweingruber of Christian-Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany.
“The difference is, however, that we’re not on such a flight for as long as astronauts would be when they’re exploring the moon,” Wimmer-Schweingruber said in an email.
Cancer is the primary risk.
“Humans are not really made for these radiation levels and should protect themselves when on the moon,” he added.
Radiation levels should be pretty much the same all over the moon, except for near the walls of deep craters, Wimmer-Schweingruber said.
“Basically, the less you see of the sky, the better. That’s the primary source of the radiation,” he said.
Wimmer-Schweingruber said the radiation levels are close to what models had predicted. The levels measured by Chang'e 4, in fact, “agree nearly exactly” with measurements by a detector on a NASA orbiter that has been circling the moon for more than a decade, said Kerry Lee, a space radiation expert at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“It is nice to see confirmation of what we think and our understanding of how radiation interacts with the moon is as expected,” said Lee, who was not involved in the Chinese-led study.
In a detailed outline released this week, NASA said the first pair of astronauts to land on the moon under the new Artemis program would spend about a week on the lunar surface, more than twice as long as the Apollo crews did a half-century ago. Expeditions would last one to two months once a base camp is established.
NASA is looking to put astronauts on the moon by the end of 2024, an accelerated pace ordered by the White House, and on Mars sometime in the 2030s.
The space agency said it will have radiation detectors and a safe shelter aboard all Orion crew capsules flying to the moon. As for the actual landers, three separate corporate teams are developing their own craft with NASA oversight. For the first Artemis moon landing, at least, the astronauts will live in the ascent portion of their lander.
The German researchers suggest shelters built of moon dirt — readily available material — for stays of more than a few days. The walls should be 80 centimeters (about 2 1/2 feet) thick, they said. Any thicker and the dirt will emit its own secondary radiation, created when galactic cosmic rays interact with the lunar soil.
"So in this sense — I think the walls of European Castles would be too thick!" Berger wrote in an email.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Ellen Fitzsimmons-Craft, assistant professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine, joins Cheddar News to discuss how chatbots can help prevent eating disorders and the research that uncovered these findings.
Shoulder injuries are one of the most common orthopedic injuries – and they're also one of the most commonly ignored. But chimpanzees, with whom we share nearly 99% of our DNA, don’t encounter the same issues we do. So why are human shoulders such a design disaster? Well, we can trace the answer back to a very particular moment in our evolution.
As the Omicron variant continues to sweep across the country. The US Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments at the end of this week on whether or not the Biden administration can force private companies to vaccinate or test millions of their employees. In addition, the National Nurses United has spearheaded legal action to protect nurses and health care workers, patients, and the public while on the job. President of the National Nurses Union, Zenei Cortez, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Digital medical care provider Pear Therapeutics rang the closing bell on the Nasdaq Friday and President and CEO Dr. Corey McCann, joined Cheddar to talk about how the company plans to grow the business of software-based therapeutics and how the first FDA authorized prescription digital therapeutics company will go about treating illnesses like insomnia and addiction. "These really are pieces of software. In many cases, they're apps and in the cases of our addiction products, these are based on something called cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT," he said. "These products change the patient's brain circuitry to help them be abstinent, to help them stay in treatment, and that's exactly what we see in randomized clinical trials and that's what we see in the real world." He also addressed the ongoing mental health crises brought on by the pandemic. **copy updated to remove IPO information as Pear Therapeutics went public in December**
Jake Carbone, senior data analyst at InfluenceMap joins Cheddar News to talk about a new report by The Guardian and InfluenceMap that reveals how companies are creating fossil fuel ads designed to look like Google search results.
Satellite launch service Virgin Orbit has gone public on the Nasdaq via a SPAC merger with NextGen Acquisitions with a valuation of about $3.2 billion. CEO Dan Hart joined Cheddar's "Between Bells" from in front of his LauncherOne rocket in New York City's Times Square to talk about what's next after the IPO, an upcoming "Above the Clouds" mission to deliver commercial and national security payloads, and the benefits of their rockets being launched from commercial 747 aircraft. "We can launch anywhere in the world," he said. "There are almost 80 space agencies across the world, for instance, and about 10 of them have space launch. We can give them a space flight capability overnight by taking a runway and turning it into a spaceport."
The year 2021 saw numerous natural disasters around the world, including extreme heat and wildfires, rare deep freezes, and historic flooding. This year's United Nations COP26 conference was key for getting world leaders on board with emissions reductions and other climate-focused policies as the UN Secretary-General said the agency's report on global warming is a 'code red for humanity.' In the U.S., President Joe Biden has focused most of his domestic agenda on slashing emissions and building climate-focused infrastructure. Guests from The Economist, UNC-Chapel Hill, Global Rescue, and more join Cheddar Climate's year-end special to discuss how the climate changed in 2021, and what to expect in 2022.
Digital mental health company Little Otter recently announced it closed a $22 million Series A round. Little Otter was founded in 2020 by a mother-daughter team, which based the company on the idea that a child's mental health can only be addressed by treating the whole family through technology available to everyone. Little Otter CEO and co-founder Rebecca Egger and her mother, Little Otter Chief Medical and Scientific Officer and co-founder Dr. Helen Egger joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Among all the other events of the last few years, you may have missed this one: Spermageddon. This is the fun name for the idea that sperm counts among mainly ‘Western’ men are in freefall. The Spermageddon hype began with the publication of a 2017 study showing a nearly 60% drop in overall sperm counts in men living in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.
But four years later, it seems that Spermageddon has been overblown. By a lot. And all that hype has obscured the real issue behind declining male fertility.
Covid-19 has changed the way we view wellness. Jillian Hughes, communications director of Mental Health America, joins Cheddar News to discuss breaking the stigma around mental health. Justin Davis, CEO and co-founder of Spectrum Labs, weighs in on how social media impacts our wellbeing. Lastly, Precision Nutrition CEO Timothy Jones advices us on what trends to watch in 2022.
