Dodging the Death Rays: A Medical Look at Our Deep Space Policy - Softcover

Ureles M.D., Alvin L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1504912810 ISBN 13: 9781504912815

Verlag: AuthorHouse, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

Dodging the Death Rays: A Medical Look at Our Deep Space Policy alerts the public to the little recognized dangers of ionizing radiation throughout deep space. It calls into question the timing safety and defenses needed to pursue the present plans for deep space exploration, presents the evidence in sharp detail, and clarifies the issues for the ordinary voting citizen.

Über diesen Titel

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Dodging the Death Rays

A Medical Look at Our Deep Space Policy

By Alvin L. Ureles

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2015 Alvin L. Ureles M.D.
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5049-1281-5

Contents

Introduction, ix, 
1 Sunshine 101, 1, 
2 Ionizing Radiation Everywhere, 11, 
3 The Death Rays, 21, 
4 The Villain From Outer Space, 31, 
5 Plans To Return To The Moon, 38, 
6 The Long March to Mars, 49, 
7 The Ultimate NASA Mission, 58, 
8 Understanding Space Bio-hazards, 66, 
9 Why We Dodge, 78, 
10 Defense, 106, 
11 Final Thoughts, 117, 
References, 127, 
Bibliography, 135, 
Appendix A. Space Radiobiology, 137, 
Appendix B. Timeline For Cosmic Rays, 143, 
Appendix C. Common Health Problems In Space Flight That Might Potentiate The Radiation Hazzards, 149, 
Appendix D. Quantum Comments, 153, 

CHAPTER 1

SUNSHINE 101

First, a quick refresher for those who have been away from science for a spell.

This book will be full of references to "RAYS", and it is important to define what is meant here by the term since there is some wiggle room about the definition among the scientific community. There will be no math or complex physics and chemistry; plain noble concepts only so take-home points are really taken home.

The Rays under discussions are both

1. Energetic massless particles that make up the broad electromagnetic (EM) spectrum, which includes the small narrow band which we call "light". We will be concerned with special EM rays, the X-Rays and Gamma Rays. These rays behave both like waves and minute packets of energy called "quanta". Don't try to visualize this behavior. You can't. It is just your introduction to the "Alice in Wonderland" aspect of modern quantum physics.

2. Subatomic particles containing mass, great energy and (except for rare exceptions) electrical charge. They emanate from some active astronomical source such as our Sun or some stellar catastrophe somewhere out in our Galaxy. They move at great speed and I shall have much to say about them.

Recall that all mater is made up of atoms and that all of nature is made up of 90 different atoms. Atoms are very small, 10^10th meters in size, a stretch for viewing by even our best transmission electron microscopes. Interestingly, all natural atoms on the periodic table in spite of their increasing complexity are roughly the same size.

Hydrogen, the simplest and most common substance in the universe, is element number one. It contains a nucleus bearing one positively charged particle mass called the proton that holds onto an oppositely charged extremely light "orbiting mass"- the electron.

Think of a lead sized golf ball down in the center of the field of the Super Dome whose electrical attraction can keep a single poppy seed whizzing about the outer bleachers and across the field in three dimensions.

Yes, atoms are mostly empty space held together by strong electrical attractions with electrons that travel in fixed tiers with different energies that can be knocked out of their "orbits" by an intruder. Every time we add a single proton to an atomic nucleus we add an additional unit of mass with a positive charge and create a unique new element which must hold onto one more electron in order to stay neutral. So we list elements on the periodic table by their proton count, one addition after another.

If we add to the nucleus an electrically neutral mass about equal to the proton - a neutron, we add to the mass of the atom but we have not changed the total charge and therefore not the element. We have only created an isotope of that element.

Finally, if we knock off an electron from an element we lose the electrical balance. We have more positive protons than negative electrons. We have a simple ion.

If we knock all the electrons off a heavier element we now have a maximized ion whose total positive charge is equal to the proton count of the element. This is a "big charge".

(Quantum mechanics at a deeper level – see Appendix D - would fine tune much of this picture, but have no fear this blueprint presented will take us where we want to go.)

We shall need to focus on Ionizing Radiation (IR) which refers to the ability of certain energetic rays to do exactly what we have just described, namely, on impact with matter, such as your laptop or your cerebral cortex, knock negatively charged electrons out of their "orbits" of surrounding atoms so that the "denuded" elements and molecules are no longer electrically balanced, creating ions, a beehive of toxic destructive activity that break vital chemical bonds.

* * *

Astronomers have a particular respect for this planet on which we live. It has to do with a number of extraordinary happenstances which can be viewed on a broad pallet of responses extending from sheer luck to a spiritual gift.

Number one on this list is our planet's precise position within the solar system - the "F" words in Astronomy. Any closer to our Sun, we Fry; any further out, we Freeze and where we are in space Feels Fine.

Lucky us. Solar system gravity and our rotation holds us in this select habitable position where we are bathed in sunshine.

Sunshine comes to us from "our star," the Sun - 93 million miles away, a little over an eight minute journey to get to us at the speed of light (186 thousand miles per second!). And it has been doing this for over 4.6 billion years and will continue for another 5 billion years.

Every young student gets to understand what we adults too soon fail to appreciate as we water our gardens. Sunlight stimulates photosynthesis in the leaves of the plant kingdom. Carbon dioxide and water are absorbed, sugar is formed and vital oxygen comes out and without it all useful life vanishes.

It is sunlight that evaporates the oceans and brings us rain and water to survive, converts the sterols in our skin to Vitamin D so that we have bones and are not crawling around like lumps of jelly. The sunshine warms us warm-blooded animals and has a positive influence on our mood and behavior, gives us our life, seasons, and dominates the ecosystem.

When Isaac Newton ran sunlight through a slit in his window shade and passed it through a glass prism he brought our whole naïve understanding of sunlight to a new level.

It was no more a ray of sunshine but an ordered continuum of colors, a revelation that over time we came to understand as the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum, a collection of wave/non-wave photons, progressive energies and frequencies ranging from big looping friendly slow radio waves at one end to high energy rapid short dangerous X-rays and Gamma Rays at the other end.

And to add to our amazement, all of these substituent rays travel in a vacuum at the same speed, 186,000 miles per second (nothing ever to exceed them).

In our exuberance over this discovery we note there is an embarrassingly small window of radiation on this broad EM spectrum that physicists call "white light" and we call "day light". It is this narrow band we humans use to see with our own eyes the three dimensional beauty of this wonderful world.

There are some notable facts about the sunshine's origin that play a major role in some of the fundamental problems to be dealt with in this book. We take the Sun so for granted that the busy educated mind often has a serious information gap about our star's awesome structure and...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: AuthorHouse
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1504912810
• ISBN 13: 9781504912815
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 170
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland