space travel outside of the Van Allen Belt?

Question

When men flew to the moon outside of the protective radiation shield surrounding Earth (Van Allen Belt) why didn't radiation kill the spacemen as their space-suits would have had to be made of thick lead to stop the radiation damage. Also, with this radiation in mind ,how was it possible to take photos on the moon as the radiation would have damaged (fogged)the film

Answer 1

Where do you get your information about radiation? Wherever it is, I strongly urge you to ditch that source and read a real textbook on the subject.

The van Allen radiation belts are zones of energetic charged particles (mostly protons and electrons) trapped by Earth's magnetic field. Lead is a terrible shield against particle radiation because of a phenomenon called bremmstrahlung. Put simply, the absorption by the lead of an energetic charged particle causes the subsequent emission of an x-ray. Your shield actually generates radiation, and more penetrating radiation than it was supposed to shield against!

You need light metals such as aluminium, plastics, or water to shield against particle radiation, and the shield doesn't have to be very thick to be effective. Now, guess what the Apollo spacecraft was made of. Aluminium. The spacesuits were plastic and metal fibres. In short, very effective shields. The most energetic part of the van Allen belts was traversed in about two hours on each mission (slightly longer on Apollo 14). Outside the belts the radiation level drops off considerably.

Now, on to the second part of the question. Radiaition does fog film, and it does cause harmful effects in humans. However, only in high enough quantities. Do you happen to know quantitatively what the radiaition environment is on the Moon? You happen to be sitting ina steady background radiaition level right now, but it isn't fogging your film or harming your body.

And finally, if it was true that the radiation was lethal, don't you think someone would have noticed by now? NASA does not have a monopoly on space exploration. Literally dozens of satellites from NASA, ESA, the USSR, all sorts of places, have been sent into space specifically to study the radiation out there. Not only that, many commercial satellites spend their entire operational life within the van Allen belts. If the radiation was as high as you say the satellites would fail and communications companies all over the world would go bankrupt pretty quickly. No-one before Apollo suggested it was too dangerous. No-one after has said it was too dangerous for Apollo to have happened. Whilst there is concern over radiation hazards for future missions, that is purely the consequence of the planned duration of those missions. Months or years in deep space require very different radiation protection measures than a short trip of about two weeks.

Answer 2

Spacecraft are shielded against radiation and the missions to the moon were timed to avoid radiation as much as possible. Besides that, I do not think you really understand the Van Allen Belt. The belt is actually made of radioactive particles that have been trapped by the Earth's magnetic field. Being in the belt would cause more damage to a spacecraft than being outside of it.

Answer 3

You're overstating the radiation levels that the Apollo astronauts encountered. The dose that they received was measurable, but still low (several times the exposure of a chest x-ray). Keep in mind that the astronauts travelled through some of the weakest parts of the Van Allen belts at a speed of many miles per second. The ship itself provided additional protection. The exposure that the astronauts received was just too low to cause any substantial damage, either biological or technological.

Answer 4

The astronauts got a dose of radiation as they zipped through the Van Allen belts, but not nearly enough to harm them, let alone kill them.

The levels of radiation inside the Van Allen belts are higher than in deep space (or on the moon). On the moon, all they got were cosmic rays, solar protons, and solar beta particles -- none of the Van Allen radiation.

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Answer 5

There's a website called badastronomy.com; it discusses a whole bunch of neat stuff, including why the moon landings weren't faked. I've read the article--it was a while ago, but I think it addresses the whole " radiation" issue. (Because most of the population doesn't understand jack $hit about astronomy, it's easy to fool them into thinking we didn't actually go to the moon by presenting all sorts of...well, bad astronomy.) Check it out.

Answer 6

They weren't in the belt long enough to do any damage.

And stars don't show up in those photos for the same reason they don't show up when you click off a shot of the night sky. There's not enough light to show up without a timed exposure.

If you really don't believe we were there, shoot a laser at the moon. They set up that reflector on live TV.