Shielding experiments with high-energy heavy ions for spaceflight applications

Details Shielding experiments with high-energy heavy ions for spaceflight applications Shielding experiments with high-energy heavy ions for spaceflight applications

Jul 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008njph...10g5007z&link_type=abstract

New Journal of Physics, Volume 10, Issue 7, pp. 075007 (2008).

Physics

1

Scientific paper

Mitigation of radiation exposures received by astronauts on deep-space missions must be considered in the design of future spacecraft. The galactic cosmic rays (GCR) include high-energy heavy ions, many of which have ranges that exceed the depth of shielding that can be launched in realistic scenarios. Some of these ions are highly ionizing (producing a high dose per particle) and for some biological endpoints are more damaging per unit dose than sparsely ionizing radiation. The principal physical mechanism by which the dose and dose equivalent delivered by these particles can be reduced is nuclear fragmentation, the result of inelastic collisions between nuclei in the hull of the spacecraft and/or other materials. These interactions break the incident ions into lighter, less ionizing and less biologically effective particles. We have previously reported the tests of shielding effectiveness using many materials in a 1 GeV nucleon-1 56Fe beam, and also reported results using a single polyethylene (CH2) target in a variety of beam ions and energies up to 1 GeV nucleon-1. An important, but tentative, conclusion of those studies was that the average behavior of heavy ions in the GCR would be better simulated by heavy beams at energies above 1 GeV nucleon-1. Following up on that work, we report new results using beams of 12C, 28Si and 56Fe, each at three energies, 3, 5 and 10 GeV nucleon-1, on carbon, polyethylene, aluminium and iron targets.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Shielding experiments with high-energy heavy ions for spaceflight applications does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Shielding experiments with high-energy heavy ions for spaceflight applications, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Shielding experiments with high-energy heavy ions for spaceflight applications will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-787358