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On Monday, NASA officially opened an application window for the next generation of American astronauts it hopes to send to the International Space Station, lunar orbit and eventually to Mars. But to find the best candidates for dealing with the harsh levels of radiation in space and on the Red Planet, the agency may want to consider looking beyond the borders of the United States for applicants.
[...] For years now, scientists have been studying residents of Ramsar, a town in northern Iran that is believed to have the highest levels of naturally occurring background radiation for an inhabited area. Levels up to 80 times the world average (PDF) have been measured in town, yet studies of the few thousand people living in the area show rates of lung cancer are actually below average. In fact, research shows that a gene responsible for the production of white blood cells and so-called "natural killer cells" that attack tumors was more strongly expressed among the population.
[...] there may be no need to engage in controversial "editing" of human genetics to create radiation-resistant astronauts because there might already be good prospects in a few corners of the world.
[...] Besides Ramsar, the beaches near Guarapari, Brazil, also exhibit very high levels of natural radiation. People in Yangjiang, China, live with radiation levels three times the world average but have below-average cancer levels, and the story is the same in Karunagappally, India.
Unfortunately, none of the people from these areas would be eligible for the program NASA is now hiring for -- the agency is only looking for American applicants. So who in the United States might be best suited for withstanding the most cosmic radiation?
Paging residents of Hanford, WA...
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Wednesday December 16 2015, @11:47AM
#VoteThemOffThePlanet (with one way or return options...)
Seriously, with our current near term projected tech level there's a high chance of it being a suicide/execution mission, or another way to siphon off tax-payers money. It's because NASA et all don't seem to be taking serious steps (go see how much $$$$ and people involved) to develop the necessary tech to maturity like artificial gravity ( e.g. http://www.artificial-gravity.com/JANNAF-2005-Sorensen.pdf [artificial-gravity.com] ) and radiation shielding.
We shouldn't bother to seriously consider going to Mars till we've figured the effects of Mars level gravity on humans for long term. And the only way to do that is to develop artificial gravity, radiation shielding and do some long term tests.
But once you've developed mature tech for artificial gravity and radiation shielding, going to Mars would still be sillier than going to the asteroids or even the moon.
Because even at that tech level there's no real advantage to Mars compared to being in a space station or on a suitable asteroid (with lots of water and other goodies):
0) You'd be stuck in an additional gravity well (costs $$$$$$ to get out).
1) The gravity is wrong
2) The atmosphere pressure is wrong.
3) The atmosphere composition is wrong.
4) The weather/climate is wrong.
5) You can't control when you get sunlight.
And unlike a space station you can't fix 0, 1 and 5.
Unless you've developed plants (bio or artificial) that can survive on Mars (gravity, pressure, atmosphere, weather etc) without expensive protection those vast tracts of land don't count for much- you'd still need to cover them up. So the cost would be similar to if not higher than doing the same in a space station or on an asteroid.
Mars may make more sense once we get to higher tech levels (when landing and leaving somehow become more affordable, terraforming, etc). But till then it's a waste of time and resources. We have a limited amount of cheap fossil fuels on Earth. Burn it wisely.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by Gravis on Wednesday December 16 2015, @02:28PM
It's because NASA et all don't seem to be taking serious steps (go see how much $$$$ and people involved) to develop the necessary tech to maturity like artificial gravity and radiation shielding.
you write as if they had a budget the size of the US military! the truth is that they have minuscule budget in comparison but have still managed some amazing feats.
... or another way to siphon off tax-payers money
it's the people like you that are obsessed with cutting their budget that is holding us back. how about you idiots do everyone a favor and rail against "defense" spending so that we have some money for science.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by TheLink on Thursday December 17 2015, @03:50AM
how about you idiots do everyone a favor and rail against "defense" spending so that we have some money for science.
Firstly that would be off topic.
Secondly it's not your defence spending I care about, so I don't rail against that. It's your offence spending I rail against. Sponsoring the ISIS and various rebels to destroy countries in the Middle East. Sponsoring other proxy wars (Afghanistan wasn't so bad till you bunch fucked it up, same goes for many other countries). By the way you bunch should dissolve (and prosecute) your CIA, they don't appear to have done a net good to the world or even the USA. They even encouraged the development of what some call "Modern Art"...
The US Gov and many US people like to call having aircraft carriers or military bases on the other side of the world "projecting power" as "defence". That's as much bullshit as saying it's home defence to have your sentry guns in other neighbourhoods.
And then they have the cheek to say the other countries are behaving aggressively when they object or make preparations to defend themselves.
With the US Gov playing World Police it's no surprise so many get killed.
You want to improve things? Don't waste your time calling me an idiot. Go convince the idiots in your country to vote differently. Too many of them are actually stupid enough to think voting is useless and armed revolution is a good idea. If they have difficulty using their votes to choose better leaders why would they do a better job using their guns to choose better leaders? When >98% of the voters keep voting for one of the Two Parties why should the Two Parties change?
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by TheLink on Thursday December 17 2015, @05:04AM
you write as if they had a budget the size of the US military! the truth is that they have minuscule budget in comparison but have still managed some amazing feats.
My point was they're not using that miniscule budget wisely to mature technology that is relevant to getting to the next step for our species.
Instead they keep doing stupid stuff like keep doing those "long term" studies:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/11832279/Nasa-Mars-isolation-experiment-starting-in-Hawaii.html [telegraph.co.uk]
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/need-some-time-off-your-feet-nasa-paying-volunteers-18k-to-lie-in-bed-for-70-days/ [cbsnews.com]
Most of which are irrelevant (if they developed the tech as I mentioned) and pointless - go ask the US Navy how they pick and handle their nuclear submariners.
Or do "reruns" of old stuff with just fancier more expensive tech. The most important experiment the ISS did was probably space tourism and the NASA bunch were against that- it was the Russians promoting it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday December 16 2015, @03:11PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @04:07AM
Due to a much smaller gravity well it would normally be easier and cheaper to get the supplies _intact_ to the surface of those asteroids than to the _surface_ of Mars, not merely "waving while staying in orbit".
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 17 2015, @11:19AM
Some of those asteroids have the same resources in arguably better concentrations. And better sunlight.
I disagree. I don't buy that there is an asteroid within the orbit of Mars with decent nitrogen or hydrogen content, for example.