Astronauts do not die from space radiation, new research suggests

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Excessive exposure to the harmful rays of the sun is a business risk borne by astronauts, who run the risk of getting cancer and heart disease. At least that's what we thought. New research shows that astronauts do not die prematurely, but scientists warn that long-term missions will pose serious risks.

A study published today in Scientific Reports has failed to associate space radiation exposure with an increased risk of death from cancer or cardiovascular disease among astronauts and cosmonauts. This is a surprising and even encouraging result, since it has long been assumed that exposure to harmful ionizing radiation would be tantamount to haunting astronauts in the form of diseases later in life, or even an early grave.

That being said, the lead author of the new study, Robert Reynolds of Mortality Research & Consulting, Inc., in California, warned that long-range missions away from the Earth's protective magnetic field, such a mission on Mars, are likely to be dangerous. and potentially shortening of life.

For the new study, Reynolds and his colleagues performed a statistical analysis of historical data available to the public. A total of 418 spacecraft were included in the study, including 301 astronauts and 117 cosmonauts.

The study has focused on all NASA astronauts since 1959 and all Soviet or Russian cosmonauts since 1961, all of whom have lived a space trip before July 2018 for astronauts and in December 2017 for cosmonauts. The average follow-up period for astronauts was 24 years and for cosmonauts 25 years.

A total of 89 deaths were recorded, including 53 astronauts and 36 cosmonauts. These people died from various causes, but Reynolds and his team were interested in only two causes of death: cancer and cardiovascular disease, which could potentially be related to radiation exposure. . Of the astronauts, 30% died of cancer and less than 15% of heart disease. The statistics were a little different for cosmonauts: half of them died as a result of heart disease and 28% of cancer.

"If ionizing radiation has an impact on the risk of death from cancer and cardiovascular disease, the effect is not dramatic."

These statistics may seem both high and alarming, but Reynolds' analysis suggests that these numbers are not unusual. No trends or hiccups could be detected in the data indicating a common cause of death, namely radiation exposure. "If ionizing radiation has an impact on the risk of death from cancer and cardiovascular disease, the effect is not dramatic," concluded the authors of the new study.

But these are "historical doses of space radiation" as described by the authors. Apart from the Apollo missions, astronauts and cosmonauts in low Earth orbit were still protected by the Earth's magnetic field. The situation in the future, when astronauts go further in space, will be distinctly different, as the new study says:

It is important to note that future deep space exploration missions are likely to provide much higher radiation doses than the original ones, resulting in a different risk profile for future astronauts. and cosmonauts. In the years to come, it is imperative that epidemiologists continue to monitor astronaut and cosmonaut populations for the potential adverse effects of exposure to space radiation, using both new and known methods. This will be an integral part of supporting human ambitions for further exploration and eventual colonization of our solar system.

Unfortunately, a mission on Mars could take years to live, unless you develop protective suits or special combinations. NASA Research conducted in 2013 concluded that, without sufficient protection, astronauts traveling to the Martian planet would be enamelled by as much radiation as they would receive from a full body scan about once a week for a whole year.

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