Mars Mission May Use Astronaut Poo as Radiation Shield

[Agent11]

Mars Mission May Use 'Poop Shield' to Block Cosmic Rays

Exposure to radiation from cosmic rays is a big concern for the Inspiration Mars Foundation team planning the 2018 Inspiration Mars mission announced last week. But they've got a possible solution—have the two-person crew use their own feces to help block the harmful rays.
"It's a little queasy sounding, but there's no place for that material to go, and it makes great radiation shielding," Taber MacCallum, the Inspiration Mars Foundation's chief technology officer, told New Scientist recently.
Solid and liquid human waste, as well as food and water, could be stored in bags used to line the Mars capsule, MacCallum told the magazine. It turns out that a liquid like water is a better shield than metal because it's got more nuclei per volume, the key to blocking cosmic radiation.

Personally I think the next step of human development in space should be to mine asteroids and comets for osmium; Osmium as well as other elements are abundant in asteroids and comets and would be required for large durable spacecraft construction.

We need our radiation shielding to be dense and heavy and osmium is the densest element we know of, so we need to procure our materials in space, and there is lots of osmium in space; Osmium is created during the supernovae of stars, like gold, although gold is at .6 ppm in universal abundance while osmium is at 3 ppm. Osmium has a density of 22.59 grams per cubic centimeter, compared to:

Lead 11.3 g/cm^3, steel 7.9 g/cm^3, 'aluminium' 2.7 g/cm^3, titanium 4.507 g/cm^3, water 1 g/cm^3, and packed dirt 1.99 g/cm^3 (our poo analog).

Besides density osmium has many other interesting properties that could be exploited by mankind as well, such as:

Being a superconducting paramagnet at 0.66 kelvins(-272.49 °C), a melting point of 3033 °C, a mohs hardness of 7; Tied 3 ways for 4th hardest element with vanadium and rhenium, and a thermal expansion rank not far from silicon at 60 for osmium vs. silicon's 64; Silicon being the least thermally expansive element and osmium being the 5th to least.

How do you feel about the ambitiousness of private and government space programs?

 

[AViking]

Although I agree that mining operations in space would be a logical next move (and companies are working on it) the density of objects we have on earth is already pretty good. TCCO is at 16 and gold is at 20. That's why you have gold foil around things in space. Osmium is better but the cost for mining is going to have to come way down and become profitable. This means we need cheaper payload delivery. Lets work on that first. I think their goal right now is $500 per pound. When they get there it would still not be profitable unless they can literally refine Iridium in space.

 

[Agent11]

Ideally NASA would dust off Wernher von Braun's plans for a moon base, modernize and re engineer it with mining the moon and building the facilities needed to process and manufacture there in mind. Then as capability allows we extend our range to the asteroid belt; The trick is to not have to haul everything into orbit.

If we had space craft built in lunar gravity using lunar materials size and weight would be no concern. You could use massive nuclear reactors to generate power, and we could build a ship large enough to 'capture' asteroids and comets that stray too close to us; Expanding our scientific knowledge and providing us with potentially exotic materials.

 

[AViking]

NASA has a $16B-$17B budget. Our military gets 40x as much money plus some.

We have our priorities straight. We need more weapons. Not science.

Looked it up: We spend $7B on the National Science Foundation.

 

[Agent11]

We could lob tonnes of tungsten from the moon at any geographic location on earth to devastating effect. . . If you know, we wanted to. . .

 

[DrPizza]

We could lob tonnes of tungsten from the moon at any geographic location on earth to devastating effect. . . If you know, we wanted to. . .

I think mining asteroids is an excellent area for missions. However, to "mine" them, we should be putting them into orbit around the moon. Until we've practiced, it seems that the negatives drastically outweigh the positives for putting them into orbit around the Earth. Ooops on the side of skipping off the atmosphere or missing getting put into orbit = oh well. Ooops on the side of plunging an asteroid toward the Earth's surface could be catastrophic for some city somewhere.

Also, since it's my theme these past few years - no need for manned missions to gather these asteroids. There's virtually nothing that humans can do up there that we can't build robots to do.

 

[Agent11]

I would agree to some extent, until we chart the asteroid belt a little better it may be too hazardous to put a base there or have manned missions. However a colony on the moon would be a great idea imo. Imagine the size of the telescopes you could stick on the dark side of the moon; Also if you colonize you have someone to repair the telescopes and these robots that venture out into the solar system that isn't stuck deep in a gravity well and atmosphere.

We understand orbits well enough that I don't think we will have to worry about too many industrial accidents, as long as simple safety procedures are followed. I imagine that once brought back for use some sort of maneuvering package would be left on any asteroid until it is dismantled.

 

[Ventanni]

The "dark" side, or far side you mean, still receives sunlight. It's just that the moon is tidal locked with the Earth, so we never see the far side. Without any atmosphere though, we could definitely setup some enormous telescopes on the moon for some serious space-grade observations.

The Lagrangian 2 (L2) point is where we stick satellites/telescopes that we don't want exposed to any sunlight, but we can only do so for a limited time due to running out of liquid helium.

 

[Agent11]

Of course, it wouldn't make much sense for NASA to set up equipment on the side tidally locked with the earth; Unless radiation was such a concern that it warranted it. The NSA would probably be interested irregardless though.

I probably haven't given it as much thought as it is probably due though. . . I don't really know if the non stationary aspect of the moon could be turned into an advantage or if it would simply be an annoyance for cosmologists.

 

[Comdrpopnfresh]

Apologies for not providing a link (couldn't find what I recalled reading), bit didn't the British/UK develop an artificial ionosphere for spacecraft a few years ago?

 

[woolfe9998]

What are the odds that this group actually raises enough money to fund even a scaled down "fly by" Mars mission by 2018? 100 to 1?

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

Mars Mission May Use 'Poop Shield' to Block Cosmic Rays
Personally I think the next step of human development in space should be to mine asteroids and comets for osmium; Osmium as well as other elements are abundant in asteroids and comets and would be required for large durable spacecraft construction.

While asteroid mining sounds nice in theory, even if you manage to extract the ore from the asteroids, you've still got a long, long way to go before it's usable. Osmium processing on earth makes pretty heavy use of a variety of other compounds -hydrochloric acid, sodium hydroxide, ammonia for example.

Plus, our processing techniques are all designed for being on Earth. Anode mud isn't going to reliably sink to the bottom in zero gravity, slag won't rise from the top, froth floatation isn't going to work at all.

Just being able to get the ore is still a very long way from getting usable metal.

 

[EagleKeeper]

While asteroid mining sounds nice in theory, even if you manage to extract the ore from the asteroids, you've still got a long, long way to go before it's usable. Osmium processing on earth makes pretty heavy use of a variety of other compounds -hydrochloric acid, sodium hydroxide, ammonia for example.

Plus, our processing techniques are all designed for being on Earth. Anode mud isn't going to reliably sink to the bottom in zero gravity, slag won't rise from the top, froth floatation isn't going to work at all.

Just being able to get the ore is still a very long way from getting usable metal.

Centrifuges will accomplish the same as gravity

 

[Agent11]

I would be interested in whether it would be feasible to use the sun's heat to do a lot of the heavy lifting as well. I imagine we could calculate how close an orbit would be required to produce the heat required.

 

[Agent11]

Apologies for not providing a link (couldn't find what I recalled reading), bit didn't the British/UK develop an artificial ionosphere for spacecraft a few years ago?

We just installed such a device on the ISS not long ago; Problem is that not all cosmic radiation is deflected by magnetism, and it's the bad stuff that gets through. . . Gamma radiation.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

Centrifuges will accomplish the same as gravity

In theory, sure. There's a pretty large gulf between theory and industrial scale processing though, which was kind of my point.

 

[Paratus]

We just installed such a device on the ISS not long ago; Problem is that not all cosmic radiation is deflected by magnetism, and it's the bad stuff that gets through. . . Gamma radiation.

Um no we did not. We did install AMS but that's a detector not a shield. What I think Comdrpopnfresh was referring to was this:

http://www.slashgear.com/star-trek-...otect-mars-mission-from-cancer-risk-28288391/

A Star Trek style deflector shield that could protect deep-space astronauts, such as the much-discussed manned mission to Mars, from cancer-causing levels of radiation is in testing, researchers have revealed. The system, described as a “mini-magnetosphere” in reference to the Earth’s magnetic field which protects us from solar radiation, is the handiwork of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, and relies upon the fact that by creating a magnetic field around a spacecraft, the dangerous rays can be deflected and the astronauts preserved in a bubble of safety for their journey.

Quite frankly with some very interesting work being done on propulsion such as the quantum vacuum plasma thruster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_vacuum_plasma_thruster

Pulsar based navigation: http://news.discovery.com/space/pulsar-navigation-gps-space.htm

Living Space based on Transhab currently being worked on by Bigelow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransHab

Laser based communications: http://www.spaceflight101.com/ladee-lunar-laser-communication-demonstration.html

it seems we maybe coming close to having all the technology available for manned interplanetary flight.

(DrPizza may stay home of course )

 

[AViking]

Um no we did not. We did install AMS but that's a detector not a shield. What I think Comdrpopnfresh was referring to was this:

http://www.slashgear.com/star-trek-...otect-mars-mission-from-cancer-risk-28288391/



Quite frankly with some very interesting work being done on propulsion such as the quantum vacuum plasma thruster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_vacuum_plasma_thruster

Pulsar based navigation: http://news.discovery.com/space/pulsar-navigation-gps-space.htm

Living Space based on Transhab currently being worked on by Bigelow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransHab

Laser based communications: http://www.spaceflight101.com/ladee-lunar-laser-communication-demonstration.html

it seems we maybe coming close to having all the technology available for manned interplanetary flight.

(DrPizza may stay home of course )

Need the shield to be fool proof before a mission is even feasible. Also need to understand the medicine behind it. Women for example can't stay in space as long as men. A mission to mars will undoabtably be a 2-3 year long mission there and back.

Still a long time off since they haven't even done a robotic there and back mission.

 

[Agent11]

Um no we did not. We did install AMS but that's a detector not a shield. What I think Comdrpopnfresh was referring to was this:

http://www.slashgear.com/star-trek-...otect-mars-mission-from-cancer-risk-28288391/



Quite frankly with some very interesting work being done on propulsion such as the quantum vacuum plasma thruster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_vacuum_plasma_thruster

Pulsar based navigation: http://news.discovery.com/space/pulsar-navigation-gps-space.htm

Living Space based on Transhab currently being worked on by Bigelow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransHab

Laser based communications: http://www.spaceflight101.com/ladee-lunar-laser-communication-demonstration.html

it seems we maybe coming close to having all the technology available for manned interplanetary flight.

(DrPizza may stay home of course )

Hmm could have sworn I watched an interview with an ISS astronaut talking about it, I must have recalled it incorrectly.

 

[Paratus]

Hmm could have sworn I watched an interview with an ISS astronaut talking about it, I must have recalled it incorrectly.

We do have a plasma contactor unit that grounds the ISS to prevent static discharge by shooting electrons into the low energy plasma the ISS flies through.

But if I had to guess, the astronaut was probably talking about the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. It uses powerful magnetic fields to measure cosmic rays.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Magnetic_Spectrometer

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, also designated AMS-02, is a particle physics experiment module that is mounted on the International Space Station. It is designed to measure antimatter in cosmic rays and search for evidence of dark matter. This information is needed to understand the formation of the Universe. The principal investigator is Nobel laureate particle physicist Samuel Ting. The launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour flight STS-134 carrying AMS-02 took place on 16 May 2011, and the spectrometer was installed on 19 May 2011.[4][5] In July 2012, reported that AMS-02 had recorded over 18 billion cosmic ray events since its installation.[6]