Weathering Space
By James Welsh, Robert Peter Gale, Andrew Karam
Efficient routes and good luck will not be enough to protect humans from the deadly radiation they will face when venturing beyond the Earth−Moon system.
This Article From Issue
January-February 2026
Volume 114, Number 1
Page 40
When the Soviet Vostok and American Mercury and Gemini missions carried humans into space, their crews experienced a physically and psychologically hostile environment hitherto unknown to humans. These pioneers not only left behind a protective biosphere containing everything that nurtures life; they also stepped out into a potentially harmful environment of energetic particles and electromagnetic radiation that humans poorly understood at the time. Until then, we hadn’t needed to: Earth’s magnetosphere and atmosphere protected life on our world from most ionizing radiations. NASA’s data collection on radiation exposure in space began with the first missions of the Mercury program, and these data informed the Apollo lunar missions. Even then, however, protection was limited to minimizing travel times and plotting routes traversing the least radiation-filled space possible.
QUICK TAKE
- Planned missions to Mars and other destinations beyond the Earth−Moon system will face considerably greater radiation risks than past missions.
- More harmful radiation would assail space travelers for longer periods and cause more severe health consequences due to treatment limitations in deep space.
- Radiation shielding that can guard against the full array of harmful space radiations while remaining sufficiently lightweight to be feasible is still in early development.
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