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A trip to the moon may not pose insurmountable radiation hazards, Rapp found, but Mars is a different story. Radiation during the transfer to and from the planet could far exceed annual limits now imposed on exposure in low earth orbit.
The highest risk of a 6-month mission on the moon would arise from solar particle events. Although this exposure could be reduced by using regolith (lunar soil) for habitat shielding, Rapp questions whether regolith can literally be piled up for shielding on current habitat design concepts.
Mars would be much tougher, Rapp found, using data from NASA's proposed "reference mission" to Mars, which is used as a guideline for mission development. During a 560-day sojourn on the Martian surface, shielding by the planet and its atmosphere would reduce the GCR effects to marginally tolerable level, Rapp estimated. During each leg of a 400-day round trip to Mars in a crew capsule, astronauts would get about double the allowable annual dose of global cosmic radiation.
"Helium 3 could be the cash crop for the moon," said Kulcinski, a longtime advocate and leading pioneer in the field, who envisions the moon becoming "the Hudson Bay Store of Earth. "Today helium 3 would have a cash value of $4 billion a ton in terms of its energy equivalent in oil, he estimates. "When the moon becomes an independent country, it will have something to trade."
Scientists estimate there are about 1 million tons of helium 3 on the moon, enough to power the world for thousands of years. The equivalent of a single space shuttle load or roughly 25 tons could supply the entire United States' energy needs for a year, accordingto Apollo17 astronaut and FTI researcher Harrison Schmitt.
Helium 3 fusion is also ideal for powering spacecraft and interstellar travel. While offering the high performance power of fusion -- "a classic Buck Rogers propulsion system" -- helium3 rockets would require less radioactive shielding, lightening the load, said Robert Frisbee, an advanced propulsion engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena California
Originally posted by HaveSeen4Myself
You must not be very old. The US and Russia have had bases on the moon since the late 1950's. The aliens were there long before us. The colonization of Mars started in the early 60's. The last discovery NASA made was when Major Nelson found I Dream of Jeanie on Cocoa Beach. Seek the truth and deny ignorance. Here's some truth to get you started:
video.google.com...