Radiation-blocking vest survives round trip to the Moon
▼ Summary
– Solar storms emit proton bursts that can raise cancer risk or cause radiation sickness, and Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field normally absorb this radiation, but spacecraft to the Moon or Mars lack such protection.
– StemRad, an Israeli-American startup, proposed shielding astronauts with wearable gear instead of shielding the entire spacecraft, led by Jordan Houri and Oren Milstein.
– The AstroRad vest was tested on NASA’s uncrewed Artemis I mission, and flight data showed it would perform about as well as Orion’s heavily shielded onboard shelter during a solar storm.
– Spacecraft shielding options like aluminum hulls, water-filled walls, and superconducting magnets all face the same issue: mass is the bottleneck, as every gram counts.
– Early assumptions that protective garments would need full-plate armor made of heavy materials like lead were impractical, but the AstroRad vest offers a viable alternative.
Solar storms present a serious hazard for space travelers. The August 1972 event, which erupted between the Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 missions, unleashed proton bursts powerful enough to elevate cancer risks or trigger radiation sickness in anyone caught unprotected. On Earth, the atmosphere and magnetic field absorb that radiation, but crews bound for the Moon or Mars have no such safety net. No spacecraft constructed to date carries sufficient shielding to neutralize the threat.
StemRad, an Israeli-American startup focused on personal radiation protection, has proposed a different approach: shield the astronauts rather than the vessel. Jordan Houri and Oren Milstein led the team behind this concept, and they recently put it to the test.
The company flew its AstroRad vest, a wearable radiation-blocking garment, to the Moon and back as part of NASA’s uncrewed Artemis I mission. Using the data collected during that flight, the team then modeled how the vest would fare during a genuine solar storm. The results showed it would protect a crew member nearly as effectively as the Orion capsule’s heavily fortified onboard shelter, the designated safe haven for riding out such an event.
A question of mass
For decades, spacecraft engineers have explored a range of shielding strategies, including aluminum hulls, water-filled walls, and superconducting magnets designed to deflect charged particles before they reach the crew. Every approach hits the same fundamental obstacle. “The question was how to use mass in a very efficient way,” Milstein says. “Mass is really the bottleneck. Every gram counts.”
The idea of a protective garment for astronauts seems both practical and far-fetched at the same time. For years, the prevailing assumption held that any effective suit would resemble full-plate armor, likely constructed from lead or other dense materials, making movement all but impossible while adding significant weight. StemRad’s work challenges that assumption, suggesting that targeted shielding, placed strategically over the body’s most vulnerable organs, can offer substantial protection without the burden of a full suit.
(Source: Ars Technica)
