Dodging the Death Rays: A Medical Look at Our Deep Space Policy - Softcover

Ureles M.D., Alvin L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1504912810 ISBN 13: 9781504912815

Publisher: AuthorHouse, 2015

Synopsis

Dodging the Death Rays: A Medical Look at Our Deep Space Policy alerts the public to the little recognized dangers of ionizing radiation throughout deep space. It calls into question the timing safety and defenses needed to pursue the present plans for deep space exploration, presents the evidence in sharp detail, and clarifies the issues for the ordinary voting citizen.

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Dodging the Death Rays

A Medical Look at Our Deep Space Policy

By Alvin L. Ureles

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2015 Alvin L. Ureles M.D.
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5049-1281-5

Contents

Introduction, ix, 
1 Sunshine 101, 1, 
2 Ionizing Radiation Everywhere, 11, 
3 The Death Rays, 21, 
4 The Villain From Outer Space, 31, 
5 Plans To Return To The Moon, 38, 
6 The Long March to Mars, 49, 
7 The Ultimate NASA Mission, 58, 
8 Understanding Space Bio-hazards, 66, 
9 Why We Dodge, 78, 
10 Defense, 106, 
11 Final Thoughts, 117, 
References, 127, 
Bibliography, 135, 
Appendix A. Space Radiobiology, 137, 
Appendix B. Timeline For Cosmic Rays, 143, 
Appendix C. Common Health Problems In Space Flight That Might Potentiate The Radiation Hazzards, 149, 
Appendix D. Quantum Comments, 153, 

CHAPTER 1

SUNSHINE 101

First, a quick refresher for those who have been away from science for a spell.

This book will be full of references to "RAYS", and it is important to define what is meant here by the term since there is some wiggle room about the definition among the scientific community. There will be no math or complex physics and chemistry; plain noble concepts only so take-home points are really taken home.

The Rays under discussions are both

1. Energetic massless particles that make up the broad electromagnetic (EM) spectrum, which includes the small narrow band which we call "light". We will be concerned with special EM rays, the X-Rays and Gamma Rays. These rays behave both like waves and minute packets of energy called "quanta". Don't try to visualize this behavior. You can't. It is just your introduction to the "Alice in Wonderland" aspect of modern quantum physics.

2. Subatomic particles containing mass, great energy and (except for rare exceptions) electrical charge. They emanate from some active astronomical source such as our Sun or some stellar catastrophe somewhere out in our Galaxy. They move at great speed and I shall have much to say about them.

Recall that all mater is made up of atoms and that all of nature is made up of 90 different atoms. Atoms are very small, 10^10th meters in size, a stretch for viewing by even our best transmission electron microscopes. Interestingly, all natural atoms on the periodic table in spite of their increasing complexity are roughly the same size.

Hydrogen, the simplest and most common substance in the universe, is element number one. It contains a nucleus bearing one positively charged particle mass called the proton that holds onto an oppositely charged extremely light "orbiting mass"- the electron.

Think of a lead sized golf ball down in the center of the field of the Super Dome whose electrical attraction can keep a single poppy seed whizzing about the outer bleachers and across the field in three dimensions.

Yes, atoms are mostly empty space held together by strong electrical attractions with electrons that travel in fixed tiers with different energies that can be knocked out of their "orbits" by an intruder. Every time we add a single proton to an atomic nucleus we add an additional unit of mass with a positive charge and create a unique new element which must hold onto one more electron in order to stay neutral. So we list elements on the periodic table by their proton count, one addition after another.

If we add to the nucleus an electrically neutral mass about equal to the proton - a neutron, we add to the mass of the atom but we have not changed the total charge and therefore not the element. We have only created an isotope of that element.

Finally, if we knock off an electron from an element we lose the electrical balance. We have more positive protons than negative electrons. We have a simple ion.

If we knock all the electrons off a heavier element we now have a maximized ion whose total positive charge is equal to the proton count of the element. This is a "big charge".

(Quantum mechanics at a deeper level – see Appendix D - would fine tune much of this picture, but have no fear this blueprint presented will take us where we want to go.)

We shall need to focus on Ionizing Radiation (IR) which refers to the ability of certain energetic rays to do exactly what we have just described, namely, on impact with matter, such as your laptop or your cerebral cortex, knock negatively charged electrons out of their "orbits" of surrounding atoms so that the "denuded" elements and molecules are no longer electrically balanced, creating ions, a beehive of toxic destructive activity that break vital chemical bonds.

* * *

Astronomers have a particular respect for this planet on which we live. It has to do with a number of extraordinary happenstances which can be viewed on a broad pallet of responses extending from sheer luck to a spiritual gift.

Number one on this list is our planet's precise position within the solar system - the "F" words in Astronomy. Any closer to our Sun, we Fry; any further out, we Freeze and where we are in space Feels Fine.

Lucky us. Solar system gravity and our rotation holds us in this select habitable position where we are bathed in sunshine.

Sunshine comes to us from "our star," the Sun - 93 million miles away, a little over an eight minute journey to get to us at the speed of light (186 thousand miles per second!). And it has been doing this for over 4.6 billion years and will continue for another 5 billion years.

Every young student gets to understand what we adults too soon fail to appreciate as we water our gardens. Sunlight stimulates photosynthesis in the leaves of the plant kingdom. Carbon dioxide and water are absorbed, sugar is formed and vital oxygen comes out and without it all useful life vanishes.

It is sunlight that evaporates the oceans and brings us rain and water to survive, converts the sterols in our skin to Vitamin D so that we have bones and are not crawling around like lumps of jelly. The sunshine warms us warm-blooded animals and has a positive influence on our mood and behavior, gives us our life, seasons, and dominates the ecosystem.

When Isaac Newton ran sunlight through a slit in his window shade and passed it through a glass prism he brought our whole naïve understanding of sunlight to a new level.

It was no more a ray of sunshine but an ordered continuum of colors, a revelation that over time we came to understand as the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum, a collection of wave/non-wave photons, progressive energies and frequencies ranging from big looping friendly slow radio waves at one end to high energy rapid short dangerous X-rays and Gamma Rays at the other end.

And to add to our amazement, all of these substituent rays travel in a vacuum at the same speed, 186,000 miles per second (nothing ever to exceed them).

In our exuberance over this discovery we note there is an embarrassingly small window of radiation on this broad EM spectrum that physicists call "white light" and we call "day light". It is this narrow band we humans use to see with our own eyes the three dimensional beauty of this wonderful world.

There are some notable facts about the sunshine's origin that play a major role in some of the fundamental problems to be dealt with in this book. We take the Sun so for granted that the busy educated mind often has a serious information gap about our star's awesome structure and function.

Yes, it is a very big mass of stellar gas (mostly hydrogen 74% with a significant amount of helium 24% and a small amount of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and heavier atoms). A mind experiment would allow you to pack a million Earths into its bigness, or one hundred Earths lined up against its equator. But the really big story is at its core where the gasses are so dense and compressed by gravity that the extreme temperature (about 27 million degrees F.) and immense pressure converts the hydrogen gas into helium with a sliver of left over mass that is converted into a prodigious explosion of energy (nuclear fusion) according to Einstein's famous law (energy equals mass multiplied by the speed of light squared).

The atoms of gas in the Sun are so exceedingly hot that the electrons and protons part company and result in a chaotic charged soup called plasma that interacts with the electromagnetic fields, generating electric and thermal currents with vast magnetic bands and convective cells – the granulations.

Note once again "lucky us". There is just the right balance between gravity compressing in and the exploding core expanding out to keep our Sun in a steady state.

It is this fusion energy that makes it all happen, "burning" hydrogen, (equal to four trillion trillion 100 watt light bulbs every second!) and starting out this EM energy in the form of high frequency Gamma Radiation on a convoluted random walk from its center to the decreased temperature of the "apparent surface" that we can observe best through a telescopic filter (to protect our eyes from its blinding radiance), the so called photosphere where the peak EM frequency has now changed to white light to which human vision has adapted through eons of evolution.

Note that if we observe the Sun using a hydrogen alpha filter we discover a layer beyond the photosphere that has shifted to the red band - the chromosphere. It has a different depth, increased temperature and behavior. Similarly if we observe the Sun with a special telescope that blocks out natural light rays or observe a solar eclipse we discover an amazing layer of plasma beyond the chromosphere extending out into the depths of space, mysterious even today because instead of losing heat as we would expect it is a blazing fury of heat and a focus of much solar activity - the corona and the solar wind.

All of this is a long process for the EM rays, proceeding from the core out through a radiative zone into a convection zone, bumping into dense constituent particles and gradually losing energy. So by the time the high frequency Gamma Rays of sunshine reach the photosphere (estimates are up to a million years) much of their energies have been converted and dominated by visible light rays, but with significant amounts of Infrared, Ultraviolet, Radio and X-rays all ready for release out in every direction, including the 8.3 minute voyage to mother Earth.

We already have the technology to gather its prodigious energy. The rays that are beaming off the Sun's giant sphere are only partially interrupted by our relatively tiny Earth, but the Solar Constant (1400 Watts per square meter of earth surface) if judiciously collected on solar panels of the right size, sensitivity and price can all but eliminate the fossil fuel requirements of the world. This is radiation at its best.

Sunshine - beautiful to behold on Earth, with all the advantages to which we have referred - unfortunately has a flipside called trouble.

There are, of course, the environmental negatives from too much or too little sunshine. The ever present need to protect our ozone from depletion lest we have a consequent ultraviolet scourge; and the ever present need to modulate our greenhouse gases.

So too the personal caveats:

Do not look directly into the Sun especially through binoculars or a simple child's telescope. The retinal damage from concentrated Infra-red Rays is sustained in a flash and can cause irreversible blindness.

Do not focus sunshine with a magnifying glass. Focused Infra-red Radiation is an invitation for a blazing fire.

Do not overexpose your skin to solar radiation. Need we warn you about the skin burns, cancer and cataracts as dangers from over exposure to ultraviolet?

These are real problems over which we have some control. But, we need to examine the unpredictable dangerous and destructive aspects of solar behavior over which we have no control. We need to address them in detail since they make up our first major encounter with ionizing radiation.

CHAPTER 2

IONIZING RADIATION EVERYWHERE

As noted, looking at the EM spectrum there is a significant change in energy and character as we pass by visible light and Ultraviolet Rays and advance to X-Rays and Gamma Rays. These two high frequency rays, with short wave lengths and energetic beams of photons unlike their neighbors to the left, harbor so much energy they are the rays that can penetrate deeply into solid objects and for our concerns easily penetrate human tissue. These are the rays we can use to see if a bone is broken or the patient has pneumonia, or requires a tumor to be excised.

But the hallmark of this penetration is not their depth but the fact that while they are on their invasive path they are smashing into atoms of organic and inorganic molecules, breaking their links, driving off their outer orbiting electrons and forming clusters of positive and negative ions which in turn can bring to a halt the tightly scheduled complex biochemistry of life. It is from this highly destructive uncompromising process that we derive the name Ionizing Radiation (IR).

These are bad guys but are not the only bad guys. They come at us from the Sun and also from outer space, and we'll stick with the former for the moment.

Certainly we can ask the question: "If dangerous X-Ray and Gamma radiation is an intrinsic part of ordinary sunshine, how do we account for the fact that plant and animal life has survived on planet Earth?"

The answer comes from one of the most prosaic and unappreciated phenomena in our ecosystem.

We have what the Moon and Asteroids do not have and what Mars barely has - we have an atmosphere.

This gravity held blanket of gas (78% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, and a small amount of carbon dioxide, argon and water vapor) envelops our earth, its surface density thinning as it extends some 600 miles out. It traps the right amount of the Sun's heat and holds its oxygen in place at the lower levels so we can breathe and has the remarkable ability via the special properties of nitrogen and oxygen to absorb the dangerous right side of the spectrum past visible light- namely soaking up most of the life threatening X-Rays and Gamma Rays. (We are not even including the important O3 ozone layer that screens out the dangerous Ultraviolet B radiation.) True, the atmosphere does not function at the level of one hundred per cent but well enough to allow us to steadily evolve from the primordial ooze.

Once again, lucky us. You can be a planet in the right place, with the right amount of sunshine but if you don't have an atmospheric blanket of quality that will stay in place and selectively shield you, it is taps at sundown.

Still we are not a species that gets completely off the hook nor does the rest of the globe's plant and animal life. There is about us a constant haze of natural Earth-bound radioactivity and Cosmic Radiation that has been part of the Earth environment since the birth of the solar system. All living things have had to adapt to it. The radioactivity is characterized by ionizing radiation emanating from unstable elements that keep decaying until they form stable ones.

This radioactivity came originally from some large stars that ended their life in a total blowup– the super nova explosions that seeded interstellar space with high mass unstable elements.

(We are still getting hit from outer space by big wallops of Cosmic Rays from supernovas. They splash into the atmosphere and cause a steady rain of secondary rays that are whistling right through us right now. We shall address these shortly.)

All atoms with more than 84 protons are unstable and decay to lower elements peppering us with variable amounts of energetic ionizing photons (Gamma and X-Rays), charged particles (electrons, alpha and beta rays), twenty four hours a day through-out our lifetime with an impact that is subtle, variable, often hidden and difficult to quantify and are for the most part can be completely ignored since at their relative low dose are well tolerated by humans and most animal and plant life.

This natural background earth radiation is principally found in rocks and soil. Radon gas (a break- down product of naturally occurring uranium) accounts for the majority of public exposure to ionizing radiation.

Radon is one of the rare elements in background radiation that can be dangerous when inhaled in high concentrations, as in mining. There are public health warnings even for the radon dose concentrations that sneak unobtrusively into our house cellars. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends that all house be tested for radon.

We have natural internal radiation within our bodies such as Carbon-14 and Potassium-40 passing in and out through the food chain. We will not stop eating bananas even though they harbor inescapable minute amounts of this radioactivity.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Dodging the Death Rays by Alvin L. Ureles. Copyright © 2015 Alvin L. Ureles M.D.. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
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Edition details

• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1504912810
• ISBN 13: 9781504912815
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 170