Integrative Shielding: Radiation Mitigation for the Journey to Mars
This work is currently underway under the direction of David W Miller of MIT and Matthew Moraguez
As manned space flight reaches past the safety of Earth’s radiation protection for longer durations, the high levels of harmful radiation must be mitigated. Current strategies for mitigating this radiation to acceptable doses range from high powered electromagnetic fields to passive shields built around certain regions of the spacecraft. In almost all of these cases the shielding material is reserved for this sole use, but this can require additional masses in the tens of tons to successfully mitigate a habitat for a crew of four. How then can already crucial systems aboard the ship be reorganized and restructured to accomplish this shielding at little to no extra mass and therefore little to no extra cost?
The objective of this study is to design adequate shielding from radiation to satisfy NCRP 132 limits by innovative trades analysis and novel organization of existing system resources such as ECLSS water and Propulsion fuels while maintaining healthy and productive living quarters. For the purposes of the study, the Solar Minimum, when SPEs (Solar Particle Events) are at their lowest and GCRs (Galactic Cosmic Rays) are at their maximum, will be evaluated, as it can be considered the most difficult environmental conditions to shield.
Initial estimations and simplified models have suggested this method is not only feasible, but could achieve the prescribed standards with little additional mass. The low atomic number of the Liquid Hydrogen and the Hydrogen content of the water lend these materials well to shielding applications as they do not have the harmful radiation spray of metals and larger atoms. Overall, the trade-space for utilizing existing systems for this shielding is ripe with opportunities to be explored further as it can provide high performance results with few of the existing costs.
While I have provided sample images, these are older values and only meant to be notional currently. Please email me if you would like updated work or wait until the ICES 2018 publication of the work.
As manned space flight reaches past the safety of Earth’s radiation protection for longer durations, the high levels of harmful radiation must be mitigated. Current strategies for mitigating this radiation to acceptable doses range from high powered electromagnetic fields to passive shields built around certain regions of the spacecraft. In almost all of these cases the shielding material is reserved for this sole use, but this can require additional masses in the tens of tons to successfully mitigate a habitat for a crew of four. How then can already crucial systems aboard the ship be reorganized and restructured to accomplish this shielding at little to no extra mass and therefore little to no extra cost?
The objective of this study is to design adequate shielding from radiation to satisfy NCRP 132 limits by innovative trades analysis and novel organization of existing system resources such as ECLSS water and Propulsion fuels while maintaining healthy and productive living quarters. For the purposes of the study, the Solar Minimum, when SPEs (Solar Particle Events) are at their lowest and GCRs (Galactic Cosmic Rays) are at their maximum, will be evaluated, as it can be considered the most difficult environmental conditions to shield.
Initial estimations and simplified models have suggested this method is not only feasible, but could achieve the prescribed standards with little additional mass. The low atomic number of the Liquid Hydrogen and the Hydrogen content of the water lend these materials well to shielding applications as they do not have the harmful radiation spray of metals and larger atoms. Overall, the trade-space for utilizing existing systems for this shielding is ripe with opportunities to be explored further as it can provide high performance results with few of the existing costs.
While I have provided sample images, these are older values and only meant to be notional currently. Please email me if you would like updated work or wait until the ICES 2018 publication of the work.
MIT 16.83: Project Apophis
Information can be found here
NIAC Proposal: Smart Marbles
This project arose out of the MIT 16.83 course above. The premise is designing and utilizing distributed uncoupled sensors on the surface of asteroids to better understand the composition and structure.
More information to follow soon
More information to follow soon