
Space Radiation Devastated the Lives of Apollo Astronaut - jackgavigan
http://observer.com/2016/07/space-radiation-devastated-the-lives-of-apollo-astronauts/
======
ackfoo
What you need to understand about this study is that radiation poses a
particular risk to structural tissues. A structural tissue is anything where
function is dictated by form, such as the cardiovascular system or the nervous
system (whose function is largely dependent upon the physical layout of the
connections between neurons).

Tissues such as the spleen and the lungs are not considered structural
because, while they certainly have a physical configuration that is important,
their function is distributed identically, or nearly identically, throughout
their structure.

If radiation affects one part of a non-structural tissue, it's function is
relatively easily transferred to another area.

This is not true of the cardiovascular system; the function of the aorta, for
example, cannot be accomplished by a capillary in the leg.

Radiation beyond the magnetosphere can be understood as mainly a point injury.
When the highly-accelerated nucleus of a heavy element, for example, passes
through a tissue, it causes local tissue damage. This is more important when
the tissue is structural, and even more important when that tissue has a
limited capacity for repair.

The Apollo astronauts were only beyond the magnetosphere for two weeks or
less. Travel to Mars, or habitation on the moon, will both require far greater
radiation exposures.

Shielding from highly-accelerated nuclei is currently impossible because they
create secondary radiation in any shielding material that is far worse than
the original problem.

Long-duration human space flight beyond the magnetosphere is therefore
impossible with current technology, despite the hype. We must develop either
strong magnetic shielding or genetic modifications to improve radiation
resistance before traveling to Mars, otherwise we will arrive with impaired
cognition and other infirmities.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

~~~
ch
So, ignoring the ethical issues, would there actually be some benefit to space
travel if, say over the next couple millennia, there was a deliberate gradual
increasing of the background radiation levels on earth?

Would that lead to human adaptations that could survive in more radiation
hostile environments?

~~~
corecoder
Adaptations in a couple millennia? I doubt it.

I don't think there's much a living being can do to become more resistant to
radiations; the most effective trick seems to be being small.

~~~
ceejayoz
> Adaptations in a couple millennia? I doubt it.

Look what we've managed with dogs in just a couple millennia.

~~~
nolok
Selective breeding is not adaptation. He's talking evolution, you're talking
eugenics.

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jakozaur
Extremely small data set, just 24 ppl were outside of low-orbit.

There are tons of other correlations that can add to it. E.g. astronauts are
hand picked group that often gone through years of specialized training.

Edit: There are different subgroups in the article, all of them are small. I
mentioned "Deep space refers to the frontier beyond Earth’s protective
magnetosphere and atmosphere where only 24 humans in history—all Apollo
astronauts, have ever travelled."

~~~
JorgeGT
I agree on the first part, but concerning the second note that the control
groups were other astronauts, not only the general population:

> _The rate among astronauts who never flew is 9%. Among low-Earth orbiting
> astronauts, its 11%. For the men who travelled to the Moon, a staggering
> 43%_

~~~
jakozaur
43% out of 7 astronauts who landed on moon is just 3 astronauts who got
cardiovascular disease.

~~~
jessriedel
12 men walked on the Moon and 24 total reached lunar orbit.

~~~
jakozaur
The study mentions 7. Probably other died before and were excluded from the
sample:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apollo_astronauts#Apol...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apollo_astronauts#Apollo_astronauts_who_walked_on_the_Moon)

E.g. Pete died from motorcycle accident at age 69:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Conrad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Conrad)

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erikb
I think "you are the first guys on the moon, but you may die 10 years earlier
than you may otherwise" is part of what the Astronauts have signed up for.
"Devastating lives" would be having ALS or bone cancer killing you over the
period of 10 years starting when you are 35.

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rubayeet
Yet another example of how findings of scientific studies are misrepresented
in the media and worded to sound frightening/interesting. Read the article on
Ars Technica on the same topic [link below] which gave it slightly better
treatment IMO

[http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/07/apollo-astronauts-
dyi...](http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/07/apollo-astronauts-dying-of-
heart-disease-at-4-5x-the-rate-of-counterparts/)

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kabdib
Very, very small data set. I have doubts that you can draw conclusions from it
without further controls (e.g., exposure to radiation versus zero-G versus the
strenuous training versus the damned Tang. Well, probably not the Tang).

~~~
maxerickson
The LEO astronauts had relatively more exposure to low G than to radiation, so
they did have a fairly effective control for that exposure.

Same with the training. Non flight astronauts (and the LEO group) had much
lower mortality due to cardiovascular disease than the general population.
Apollo group was noticeably higher. I guess the guys who went to the moon
could have trained that much more than other astronauts, but they would have
decent information about that.

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lordnacho
How did they conclude it was both significant and caused by radiation? 24
people from a similar background and age is less than 24 people.

I suppose the incident radiation must have been orders of magnitude above what
ordinary people get here on the ground, or a few days in space would not
amount to much.

~~~
bhaak
> How did they conclude it was both significant and caused by radiation? 24
> people from a similar background and age is less than 24 people.

Quote from the abstract:

> To test a possible mechanistic basis for these findings, a secondary purpose
> was to determine the long-term effects of simulated weightlessness and
> space-relevant total-body irradiation on vascular responsiveness in mice.
> The results demonstrate that space-relevant irradiation induces a sustained
> vascular endothelial cell dysfunction. Such impairment is known to lead to
> occlusive artery disease, and may be an important risk factor for CVD among
> astronauts exposed to deep space radiation.

They didn't just do some poor statistics with a low sample size.

So, their findings suggests that low gravity for a 6 month period doesn't
affect the health of the mice but the radiation does. Not far off what we
already suspected but with a small twist (cancer was probably considered a
bigger risk than CVD).

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narrator
The molecule c60, a.k.a Buckminsterfullerium, has shown to have powerful anti-
radiation
effects([http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19914272](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19914272)).
It can absorb ionizing radiation without degrading. They tried to kill mice by
feeding them it, but they lived twice as long
([http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22498298](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22498298)).
Unfortunately, this result is so bizarre that nobody will ever believe it.

NASA and SpaceX won't ever figure this out though. They will fund some sort of
initiative that will waste billions and give lots of researchers jobs for
years. It will test billions of small molecules and find something that
improves tolerance to radiation by .1% but has toxic side effects.

Edit: Gave medical study citations for both claims and got down votes? There
are actually a lot of surprising results in medical literature that are
ignored because there's not a lot of money in them and they were discovered
with so little effort. The conventional wisdom is: if it didn't cost a billion
dollars to develop, it couldn't possibly work.

~~~
Symmetry
The potential anti-aging effects of c60 are interesting but there's no reason
to believe it can help with radiation. Lots of things can absorb radiation
without degrading, that doesn't mean that eating them will transfer their
powers to you.

~~~
narrator
This is a really phenomenal mouse study:

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19914272](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19914272)

It's so bizarre that it won't get followed up. I spend a lot of time digging
in pubmed and when I find stuff like this, nobody cares. It's too cheap of a
solution and not patentable. It will be forgotten because 95% of people will
scoff at the result. It's simply too miraculous to be believed.

~~~
Symmetry
If that was just a single result I'd scoff too but it was following up on some
earlier indications of the same thing so I agree it needs to be investigated
more. Still, it appears to be entirely unrelated to radiation tolerance.

~~~
narrator
From the previously mentioned study: "It was found that 2-week C(60)(OH)(24)
pretreatment effectively reduced whole body irradiation-induced mortality
without apparent toxicity."

Am I reading that wrong? That seems to say that mice that got the pretreatment
with C60 were less likely to die of radiation poisoning than controls and
there was no observed toxicity. That's a pretty astonishing result. This study
even has several further studies that cite it, so it seems that there's some
followup going on.

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kraemate
What about the relative lifespans of the astronauts? The ones selected to go
to the moon were probably older, fitter, and more experienced when they made
the trip. Did they outlive the other astronauts and the general population?
Since mortality due to heart disease increases with age, did the moon
astronauts just live longer?

~~~
kraemate
Infact, Table-1 in the paper confirms this. The astronauts that went to the
moon lived significantly longer (65 compared to 56 years).

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perseusprime11
How do we know this is related to space radiation and not gravity?

~~~
_nalply
Perhaps by comparing to the population on ISS because the space station is
still at least partially protected by Earth's magnetic field?

~~~
perseusprime11
I kind of feel like we don't fully understand gravity which may be causing
these problems. The space suits are pretty robust. Are we now saying that the
space suits we send our astronauts in are not up to mark and cannot protect
them from space radiation?

~~~
maxerickson
Yes, there is insufficient protection from radiation in the suits and in other
spacecraft.

~~~
_nalply
Especially deep space radiation outside the Earth's magnetic field.

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amelius
I'm curious if only the cardiovascular system is affected. And if so, why?
What does radiation do to the brain, or the endocrine system, for example?

~~~
_nalply
I am not sure whether I understood it correctly, but the secondary radiation
(when a high energy particle hits the shielding, a shower of secondary
particles rains on the unfortunate passenger) seems to physically hurt parts
of the body. Similar to boiling small random volumes inside the body. And the
aortic arch seems to be very sensitive to such lesions.

~~~
Symmetry
Right. That's why you want to use low atomic weight shielding like paraffin or
water when you're worried about charged particle radiation.

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pavel_lishin
Can someone explain the aluminum link? Is the concern due to secondary
radiation?

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jlebrech
or maybe it's emotional eating that caused it?

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mite-mitreski
Doesn't anyone knows basics of statistics 40 people is not a sample, how is
this even a news ?

~~~
maxerickson
Epidemiologists tend to be quite familiar with statistics. They prefer it to
counting.

