The space radiation environment poses both acute and
chronic risks to crew health and safety. Unlike some
other aspects of space travel, space radiation exposure
has significant mortality and morbidity implications
for the lifetime of the crew. As part of NASA's Human
Research Program, the Space Radiation Program Element
(SRPE) performs investigations to ensure that the crews
can safely live and work in the space radiation environment
without exceeding the permissible exposure limits during
and after the missions. The term "safely"
means that 'risk limits' are sufficiently understood
such that acceptable limits on mission, post-mission
and multi-mission consequences can be defined.
Although information exists to recommend crew exposure
limits and spacecraft design requirements for missions
in low Earth orbit, there is insufficient knowledge
of the health effects of radiation, the space radiation
environment, and countermeasure efficacy to provide
recommendations on crew exposure limits and design requirements
for extended lunar and Mars missions. Thus, a major
focus of the SRPE is basic and fundamental research
to expand the knowledge base and reduce the uncertainty
inherent in current exposure limits and design requirements.
Uncertainty reduction for Lunar and Mars missions must
occur on a timeline to support agency goals in vehicle,
mission, and crew selections.
The major deliverables for the Space Radiation Program
Element include:
- Recommendations to crew permissible exposure limits
for exploration missions.
- Radiobiological data, projection models, and computational
tools to assess and project crew risk of cancer, central
nervous system and degenerative tissue risks as well
as acute radiation syndrome from space radiation;
- Computational tools and models to assess vehicle
design for radiation protection;
- Assessment of updated technologies for monitoring
radiation exposure and recommendations on technologies
to be used operationally;
- Uncertainty reductions to enable radiation protection
design and crew constraints for lunar and Mars missions
- Assessment of effectiveness and development of physical
or biological countermeasures to mitigate radiation
health risks.
The SRPE transfers the results and products of research
to support NASA's current and future operations for
exploration.
The Space Radiation Program Element is a multi-center
project led by JSC, and includes the work at the Langley
Research Center (LaRC) and the Ames Research Center
(ARC). A majority of the research is performed by peer
reviewed principal investigators in academia. The intramural
and extramural researchers use the NASA Space Radiation
Laboratory at Brookhaven to conduct research using accelerator-based
simulation of space radiation.
2008 HRP IWS Banners
1)
Overview
2)
Requirements / Gaps
For more information, please visit the Space
Radiation Program Element Website.
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