Traveling on Mars could give you bowel cancer, and it's not good – BGR

Bringing a human mission to Mars safely would be the greatest accomplishment of all time in the space age. Humans have never visited another planet and, although we have traveled to the moon, the challenges created by a mission on Mars are obviously at a whole new level.

NASA and other organizations around the world are already working hard to solve the problems posed by a trip to Mars, but a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that we will have to look within ourselves before deciding to head for the red planet.

In this article, researchers at the Georgetown University Medical Center explain the impact of ionizing radiation on gastrointestinal tissue and issue a stern warning to anyone planning to send humans to long-range space missions.

The study focuses on the effects of heavy ions that interact with living tissue, highlighting the effects of particles on the stomach and colon, which are particularly vulnerable to disturbances. The Earth's magnetic field protects us effectively against the bombardment of radiation from space, but travelers heading to Mars or beyond would not be so lucky.

Unfortunately for astronauts, no one has found an adequate solution to protect them against this type of cosmic radiation, and it should be remedied before any space agency decides to send manned missions to the red planet. The team's work shows that tissue disturbances caused by space radiation can hinder the functioning of the gastrointestinal system and significantly increase the risk of tumor development.

"With the current shielding technology, it is difficult to protect astronauts from the harmful effects of heavy ionic radiation," says Kamal Datta, co-author of the study. "While there may be a way to use drugs to counter these effects, no such agent has yet been developed. Although short trips, such as those that astronauts have traveled to get to the moon, do not expose them to this level of damage, the real concern is the lasting injury of a long journey, such as Mars or d & # 39; Other missions in the far space much longer. "

The safety of the first travelers on Mars (and all subsequent missions, of course) is of utmost importance. The immense time and investments that will be invested in the first manned journeys on Mars mean that keeping astronauts in excellent physical condition is a top priority. Nobody wants to do his job with tumors that grow in the gut. Developing a protection mechanism to ensure the safety of the crew should therefore be one of NASA's priorities.