Dose Limits and Countermeasures for Mitigating Radiation Risk in Moon and Mars Exploration
Open accessAbstract
After decades of research on low-Earth orbit, national space agencies and private entrepreneurs are investing in exploration of the Solar system. The main health risk for human space exploration is late toxicity caused by exposure to cosmic rays. On Earth, the exposure of radiation workers is regulated by dose limits and mitigated by shielding and reducing exposure times. For space travel, different international space agencies adopt different limits, recently modified as reviewed in this paper. Shielding and reduced transit time are currently the only practical solutions to maintain acceptable risks in deep space missions.
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Based on these dose rates, the current estimates for a full Mars mission are critically high, exceeding most space agency limits that are set at 0.6-1 Sv.
“Based on these dose rates, which are mainly delivered by GCR and can be further increased by potential SPEs, the current estimates for a full Mars mission are critically high, exceeding most space agency limits that are set at 0.6–1 Sv38.”
From Towards sustainable human space exploration—priorities for radiation research to quantify and mitigate radiation risks (2023) · cites this paper as [38]
Section 3 (ICRP; page not provided) says a Mars mission would approach 1 Sv and that essentially no NASA astronauts could join under the limits discussed, while ESA and RSA astronauts would be close to their maximum dose. Sections 2.2–2.3 give the RSA and ESA limits as 1 Sv. The source therefore supports the dose concern and the approximate 0.6–1 Sv limits, but not the claim that a full Mars mission would exceed most agencies’ limits; it also cautions that no agency had established limits for missions beyond low Earth orbit. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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Fogtman, A., Baatout, S., Baselet, B., Berger, T., Hellweg, C. E., Jiggens, P., La Tessa, C., Narici, L., Nieminen, P., Sabatier, L., et al. (2023) · npj Microgravity · doi:10.1038/s41526-023-00262-7 · Cited by 70 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- Boscolo, D., & Durante, M.
- Affiliations
- GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Durante, Marco
- Venue
- Physics
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Published
- 2022-02-09
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 172-184
- ISSN
- 2624-8174 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4210995189
- Cited by
- 12
- References
- 18
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 4
- FWCI
- 1.24
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Physics (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Technischen Universität Darmstadt (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- GSI Repository (German Federal Government) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- TUbilio (Technical University of Darmstadt) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- TUbilio (Technical University of Darmstadt) (submittedVersion)
- Technischen Universität Darmstadt (cc-by)
- Funders
- European Space Agency (ERFNet)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Spaceflight effects on biology
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Effects of Radiation Exposure
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Radiation Dose and Imaging
- Keywords
- radiation dose limits, cosmic rays, late radiation effects, human space exploration, lunar exploration, Mars exploration, radiation shielding, transit time reduction, radiation countermeasures, deep space missions, radiation protection regulation
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