Although cannot be inspected by human eyes, radiation has always been a health concern for all. There are a lot of people keep arguing their living environment has too much radiation and it seems they are trying to get away from radiation. In space, without the shielding of Earth atmosphere, the higher dose of radiation becomes a much more serious problem which indeed threats astronauts’ lives. The fatal radiation sets back humans from staying in space for a long time. Because it is so important to fully understand the radiation level in space, NASA is doing continuous monitoring and evaluation based on data from current satellites and space crafts. NASA is also working on different methods to decrease the harm caused by radiation. However, these methods are still with limitations. Therefore, in order to do a long term space trip, radiation is still one of the important obstructions that needs to be solved. There are two major types of radiation in space that does the most of harm to astronauts. Both types of radiation consist of …show more content…
These high-energy particles could penetrate skin, and break the chemical bonds in human’s DNA molecule, causing unexpected cell apoptosis and mutation. Such damage could be acute when human is exposed on a high dose of radiation, or chronic when exposed to a lower but long-term radiation. In the chronic case, which is the situation for the astronauts, the radiation might cause cancer or other genetic related diseases. [TODO: NEED MORE DETAIL, such as radiation-induced muscular/bone loss, and central nervous system effects] Radiation is measured by the unit Sievert, which describes the dose equivalent. For each Sievert unit of radiation, the risk of cancer increases by 5.5 percent. (Tate) Currently, the dose equivalent limit for keeping an astronaut safe from disease is 1 Sv for the entire