Re: Radiation shielding for unmanned lander on Io

On Mar 25, 2:50 am, "Alex Terrell" <alexterr...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
According to Zubrin in Entering Space, at Io orbit, radiation is 3,600
REM per day, which would probably kill a human in an hour. As for the
strengths of the fields, it should be possible to compute this given
Io's orbit and Jupiter's magnetic field strength.

At least that's not a tenth as bad off as for orbiting our nearly
naked moon. On a bad solar day, orbiting our moon could easily
contribute that 3600 REM per hour. After all, Io's atmosphere of
mostly sulfur dioxide that's providing a somewhat thin layer but
otherwise good enough to/from shield density that'll attenuate much of
whatever lethal radiation potential there is to behold. Other
radiation is further moderated by way of having that nifty benefit of
your being situated within that absolutely horrific magnetosphere of
Jupiter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Io_(moon)

Actually, unless your human DNA has loads of shielding and/or a good
backup plan-B, such as having that failsafe cache of banked bone
marrow, as otherwise less than an hour's worth of Io orbital dosage
and you're in seriously big and/or bad-ass trouble from your insides
out. Getting that equipment as soon as possible onto the deck is
essential unless all critical systems are will shielded and/or using
those three CPU methods with multiple sensors of essentially averaging
such data for obtaining the best possible science.

Of course, just getting whatever to/from Io is next to impossible for
much of anything other than rad-hard robotics, not to mention spendy
as all get-out.
-
Brad Guth

.