Re: An outfit suitable for Mars

On Thu, 18 Aug 2005 12:43:54 GMT, Alan Anderson
<aranders@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>Cardman <do-not@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> >...For a variety of
>> >reasons, some as yet ill-understood, women are more prone to radiogenic
>> >cancers than are men.
>>
>> Well that sounds highly questionable. You have to wonder how much is
>> real and how much is simply people's assumptions that women are
>> somehow "weaker".
>
>Look it up. (You obviously know how to do that, since you came up with
>all that detail on Kathryn Sullivan's EVA...but you should really do it
>*before* making silly suppositions.)

The reason why I did not look it up was because I was under the
assumption that no one would be stupid enough to set up a research
programme in order to subject people to radiation. Obviously I
overlooked this one War-time exception.

Also during a debate there is only need to state one side. So finding
this information is for anyone who wishes to question my view. In
other words I am not writing a research paper here.

>Lung cancer rates in Hiroshima survivors are anomalously higher in
>women.

This would be an usual fact, when male and female lungs are not that
much different.

I would suspect that a social factor would explain this. Like with the
women hanging around in the fall-out, looking for their family, while
the men went off to fight the enemy.

During the blast the location of men and women could have also varied,
which would subject them to different radiation doses.

So there would have to be many social factors to discount, before you
can claim that women's lungs have a weaker cellular structure than
with men.

>Ovarian and breast cancer are more common than testicular and
>prostate cancer. It's not a myth, it's a statistical fact.

And I would not question this fact.

Women's breasts are more likely to develop cancer simply due to
breasts being soft and easy to damage. This can be direct physical
harm, expansion due to childbirth, and even the effects of old age.

And yes even radiation would play a role here.

Ovarian cancer would be more common than testicular cancer simply
because men have their equipment between their legs. So men have hard
bones protecting their unit, while women's ovaries would be subject to
more radiation due them being located in their soft middle.

I would even suspect that women with smaller breasts and no children
to have less of a cancer risk than with women with larger breasts and
at least one child.

So it could be true to say that in terms of breast cancer, than going
to Mars could well be less of a risk than with having a child. Simply
due to the cellular damage involved when the breasts expand.

However, my main point in this is that I expect that this difference
between men and women can be easily compensated for. I have already
mentioned how even radiation up to microwaves can be deflected. So
simply having women wear say a lead-lined T-Shirt would well make them
as good as, or better than, the men.

I cannot recall if NASA has done any research into reducing radiation
exposure in the personal sense. One thing I am sure of is that it
takes much more information than this to convince me that women have
more of a cancer risk if they go to Mars.

Cardman.
.

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