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View submission: Ask Anything Wednesday - Engineering, Mathematics, Computer Science
Now that we know being off-Earth (in interplanetary space) is terrible for your kidneys
Well, we have one paper highlighting potential problems using a mouse model and extrapolation from experience in LEO. Which is worth taking seriously, but I don't like the "now that we know" phrasing. We don't *know* stuff from just one paper, no matter how good it is. We won't *really* know about the health effects of a Mars trip until someone actually makes one. This is mostly just an aside about the dangers of relying too much on a single paper on any topic. It's *probably* fine in this case, but if you aren't careful you'll be led astray by exciting new papers that turn out to be wrong.
what sort of solutions are you kicking around to protect astronauts from radiation damage?
Two main approaches are shielding the crew compartments better by putting stuff between astronauts and space (this is easier on planetary surfaces, and the planet shields about half the cosmic rays just by being the ground beneath your feet) and making the trip faster to reduce overall exposure.
Is the equipment itself in danger, especially since tech is growing more and more refined?
Fortunately we have lots more experience with electronics in space, and in deep space. There are ways to harden them against radiation and to use backups to account for failures. You can't just bring along extra kidneys (or extra astronauts) and just shrug if a few die as long as some keep working. But you absolutely can include extra computer processors and use them as backup.
There's nothing here!