Re: TransHab as storm shelter

From: Henry Spencer (henry_at_spsystems.net)
Date: 06/05/04 

Date: Sat, 5 Jun 2004 16:17:30 GMT

In article <c9i8h3$147$1@reader2.panix.com>,
Tim McDaniel <tmcd@panix.com> wrote:
>>The way to protect against micrometeorites (and in LEO, space debris)
>>is with multiple thin "bumper" shields spaced well out...
>
>I take it that that doesn't work for cosmic rays -- enough shielding
>far out to break up the cosmic ray particles, and distance from the
>bumper shields to let time take care of the cosmic ray fragments?
>That could only work if the fragments were almost all slow or almost
>all very quick to decay.

Alas, cosmic rays are very energetic, and so many of the secondaries are
moving very fast and go a long way before decaying. The showers of
secondaries from cosmic rays being stopped in the upper atmosphere are
easily detected on the ground; in fact, the muon and the pion were both
first discovered as cosmic-ray secondaries. Also, some of the eventual
decay products would themselves remain dangerous, e.g. fragments of nuclei
might decay a little but wouldn't disappear. 

-- 
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend."    |   Henry Spencer
                                -- George Herbert       | henry@spsystems.net