NASA just released this article on radiation doses in
route to MArs. I know this has been a topic on this
list before and am interested in your thoughts:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/17feb_radiation.htm?list115805

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for the article link.

If the radiation is intense enough that you see cosmic
ray flashes in your retinas (Apollo astronauts) then
you have a serious problem with long term exposure.
Adult humans can take a lot of radiation with a mild
increase in cancer. Their reproductive cells are much
more vulnerable and would be ill advised to have
children afterwards.

Commercial airline pilots have a reported ratio of 3:1
girl to boy in their offspring. This is with just the
father flying at 35,000 feet where radiation is
minimal compared even to LEO and the ISS.

The only configuration I would be comfortable with
going to Mars in is one that had very heavy shielding
and artifical gravity. By heavy I am talking a
thousand tons or better. Hydrogen is very efficient
per mass. There are other things to be concerned
about that need armor.

The approach of using drugs to combat both begs the
question of doing something that mammals were never
'designed' to do. Little microbes multiply so fast
that if half of them die periodically, it is hardly
noticed. All higher lifeforms suffer perminent damage
that is tricky to treat and prone to massive side
effects. For radiation you are playing a game with
fostering as many problems as you treat (antioxidants,
gene repair molecules). With osteoporosis anything
that adds calcium may add it in the wrong place
causing painful bone spurs.

My recommendation is to mine the moon (detailed
earlier and by many people) and build up a sizeable
space craft at L5 before trying for Mars. This way
you are getting there in comfort and security and not
facing the rest of your life guessing what cost the
experience has been to your body. If done properly
this only adds a few years to the target date of the
mission and you get a powerful moon base as well.

- Thor

> NASA just released this article on radiation doses
> in
> route to MArs. I know this has been a topic on this
> list before and am interested in your thoughts:
>
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/17feb_radiation.htm?list115805

I am inclined to agree with your position, but do you have a reference for the 3:1 girl/boy for pilots? Jay Huebner

Commercial airline pilots have a reported ratio of 3:1
girl to boy in their offspring. This is with just the
father flying at 35,000 feet where radiation is
minimal compared even to LEO and the ISS.

What are the effects on female aircrew ?

> I am inclined to agree with your position, but do you have a
reference for the 3:1 girl/boy for pilots? Jay Huebner

I question the ratio of boys to girls, reference please.

According to this article:

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0UBT/8_15/70734907/p1/article.jhtm
l

"Aircrew Exposure to Cosmic Radiation Involves only Slight Cancer
Risk."

"The exposure to cosmic radiation from a year of flying is roughly
equivalent to receiving a barium enema"

> I am inclined to agree with your position, but do you have a
reference for the 3:1 girl/boy for pilots? Jay Huebner

Well you caught me without a link handy and my memory
is not perfect. I have forwarded this question off to
the Health Physics Society to see if they can support
or discredit my assertion.

I got my information origionally from a science news
article on dioxin contamination among other things and
how it turned out that boy babies were a lot more
susceptible to this than girls. In a couple of cases
only girls were born though this was due to chemicals
and not radiation.

Somewhere in there was a statistical observation that
male airline pilots have a strikingly higher chance of
having girls than boys. I know a few commercial
airline pilots and they mentioned that their colleges
have girls so I didn't question this as much as maybe
I should have. Mayby I just got luckly and mangled a
few memories together along the way.

- Thor

I question the ratio of boys to girls, reference
please.

According to this article:

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0UBT/8_15/70734907/p1/article.jhtm
l

"Aircrew Exposure to Cosmic Radiation Involves only
Slight Cancer
Risk."

"The exposure to cosmic radiation from a year of
flying is roughly
equivalent to receiving a barium enema"

--- In ssi_list@... "Huebner, Jay"
> I am inclined to agree with your position, but do
you have a
reference for the 3:1 girl/boy for pilots? Jay
Huebner
>
> Commercial airline pilots have a reported ratio of
3:1
> girl to boy in their offspring. This is with just
the

Thanks for the article link.

If the radiation is intense enough that you see cosmic
ray flashes in your retinas (Apollo astronauts) then
you have a serious problem with long term exposure.
Adult humans can take a lot of radiation with a mild
increase in cancer. Their reproductive cells are much
more vulnerable and would be ill advised to have
children afterwards.

Commercial airline pilots have a reported ratio of 3:1
girl to boy in their offspring. This is with just the
father flying at 35,000 feet where radiation is
minimal compared even to LEO and the ISS.

The only configuration I would be comfortable with
going to Mars in is one that had very heavy shielding
and artifical gravity. By heavy I am talking a
thousand tons or better. Hydrogen is very efficient
per mass. There are other things to be concerned
about that need armor.

The approach of using drugs to combat both begs the
question of doing something that mammals were never
'designed' to do. Little microbes multiply so fast
that if half of them die periodically, it is hardly
noticed. All higher lifeforms suffer perminent damage
that is tricky to treat and prone to massive side
effects. For radiation you are playing a game with
fostering as many problems as you treat (antioxidants,
gene repair molecules). With osteoporosis anything
that adds calcium may add it in the wrong place
causing painful bone spurs.

My recommendation is to mine the moon (detailed
earlier and by many people) and build up a sizeable
space craft at L5 before trying for Mars. This way
you are getting there in comfort and security and not
facing the rest of your life guessing what cost the
experience has been to your body. If done properly
this only adds a few years to the target date of the
mission and you get a powerful moon base as well.

- Thor

> NASA just released this article on radiation doses
> in
> route to MArs. I know this has been a topic on this
> list before and am interested in your thoughts:
>
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/17feb_radiation.htm?list115805

--- In ssi_list@... "Charles F. Radley"
>
> I question the ratio of boys to girls, reference please.
>
> According to this article:
>
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0UBT/8_15/70734907/p1/article.jht
m
> l
>
> "Aircrew Exposure to Cosmic Radiation Involves only Slight Cancer
> Risk."
>
> "The exposure to cosmic radiation from a year of flying is roughly
> equivalent to receiving a barium enema"

I'm not vouching for the veracity of the research, but a quick
google yields the following:

http://www.wisespirit.com/beemf.htm

"EMF and Sex-Distribution of Offspring- Children born near a high
voltage power station in Baghdad were 87% girls, and 13% boys.
Author suggests high female percentages might also be related to the
same percentages seen in offspring of lymphoma patients.
Speculations are that EMF exposure interferes with calcium and this
in turn affects the Y- bearing sperm (male) more than the x-bearing
sperm motility."

Make of it what you will. At least this can send you in the
direction of finding a more reliable study.

TangoMan

PS. Don't get too carried away with the EMF scare.

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/emf.html
http://www.mcw.edu/gcrc/cop/powerlines-cancer-FAQ/toc.html

I am not impressed by this.

Lots of claims have been made that EMF has biological effects.

They have all been discredited.

In one famous case the person making the claim was convicted of fraud
and barred from federal contracts (they had faked their results,
while pocketing federal research grant money).

Let us see this assertion supported in a peer reviewed journal or two.

How does this relate to the claim about cosmic rays and airline
pilots? It looks like we are starting to become distracted by a
bunch of hokey pokey psuedo science.

P.S. My parents lived under power lines, and both my siblings are
boys. So what does that prove ?

Best regards,

Charles R.

--- In ssi_list@... "victoriatangoman"
> --- In ssi_list@... "Charles F. Radley"

> >
> > I question the ratio of boys to girls, reference please.
> >
> > According to this article:
> >
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0UBT/8_15/70734907/p1/article.jht
> m
> > l
> >
> > "Aircrew Exposure to Cosmic Radiation Involves only Slight Cancer
> > Risk."
> >
> > "The exposure to cosmic radiation from a year of flying is
roughly
> > equivalent to receiving a barium enema"
>
> I'm not vouching for the veracity of the research, but a quick
> google yields the following:
>
> http://www.wisespirit.com/beemf.htm
>
> "EMF and Sex-Distribution of Offspring- Children born near a high
> voltage power station in Baghdad were 87% girls, and 13% boys.
> Author suggests high female percentages might also be related to
the

--- In ssi_list@... "Charles F. Radley"
> I am not impressed by this.
>
> Lots of claims have been made that EMF has biological effects.
>
> They have all been discredited.
>
> In one famous case the person making the claim was convicted of
fraud
> and barred from federal contracts (they had faked their results,
> while pocketing federal research grant money).
>
> Let us see this assertion supported in a peer reviewed journal or
two.
>
> How does this relate to the claim about cosmic rays and airline
> pilots? It looks like we are starting to become distracted by a
> bunch of hokey pokey psuedo science.

Hey!! Don't turn the guns on me. I just spent a minute to google for
something that might be relevent. You could have done the same.

Look at what I wrote. I wrote that I didn't vouch for the info, in
fact I even pointed to sites that debunked the Power Lines & Cancer
thesis.

The relevence of the post was that there was a gender imbalance due
to EMF, if you accept the veracity of the report, so perhaps the CR
had a similar effect on pilots.

TangoMan

One might say that the common thread here is the apparent fragility of the Y
chromosome, if these studies are on the mark. This seems current, although I
believe recently there have been found some tricky methods that the Y uses
to remain effective though lacking sufficient repair mechanisms... Perhaps
someone knows more of this?

Val

>
> What are the effects on female aircrew ?

Charles,

Sex of the baby is determined by the male's sperm.

I don't know anything about the pilot stuff.

Oh, these days I'm going around introducing myself as the "Marathon
Running Mensa Member Who's Not Good Enough to Work for NASA." It gets a
real chuckle when I give my talk on NASA's dysfunctional management culture.

BTW, FBI really stands for "Feeble Brained Incompetents." And we're
going to rename the Department of Homeland Security. The new name?
American Security Service. And who works for them? Why, Homeland
Officers for Law Enforcement, of course.

Best,

Chuck Divine