How about responding to the ideas in the opening post?
I didn't want to because it is a whole barrage of fail, but if you insist.
Stars send out their light via a tried and true method: radiation.
Should I just say well done for quoting the blatantly obvious? Ok. Well done.
The light is carried in the star's rays; aka, electromagnetic waves.
Well done.
Our own sun's rays have not changed in nature for an awful long time, but we have only recently begun to understand what those rays consist of and how they act upon materials and humans in the void of space.
Not so well done. EM waves were discovered in the 19th century.
Slowly, the new understanding is leaking into the media, and if you read carefully, you are beginning to realize that the sun has its own kind of "weather" which consists of surface storms (sun spots) that flare in explosions of light.
"Leaking into the media" being fully published peer reviewed articles and thousands of web sites.
Flares are unique occurrences, they are different from radiation sent forth by the magnetic explosions of a coronal mass ejection.
Coronal Weather Report: CMEs and Flares (Page 1)
Flares are local events and very often confused with mass ejections - for the purposes of any discussion intense flares are most often referred to as CMEs.
A CME has heavy ions of energetic protons and it seems to lumber along at speeds of one to four million miles per hour.
Nonsense. A CME is made up of plasma consisting of electrons/protons and sometimes heavier elements.
Coronal mass ejection - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Coronal mass ejections reach velocities between 20km/s to 3200km/s with an average speed of 489km/s, based on SOHO/LASCO measurements between 1996 and 2003."
A flare OTOH, has energetic electrons, and travels at the speed of light, being an explosion of light, it is purely sunlight by composition.
Gibberish. Electrons have mass, light does not. Mass CANNOT reach light speed. Go and read the theory of relativity
So for starters, when you read about major and minor flares that took place during the Apollo missions, realize that the "major" flares were more likely CME's ... while the "minor" flares were actually flares.
Fail. Minor flares have lower energetic power and have very little coverage. Major flares last long enough that they MAY head towards earth. Very rarely will we get a major flare that would be lethal, accumulatively over a month in space a person may get sick.
The CME's might have taken a day and a half up to 3 days to reach the earth and moon, while the flares arrived in ten minutes, the same as all sunlight does.
Complete rubbish. Massless light will not carry particle radiation. Mass cannot travel at light speed.
What we are learning today is that both the CMEs and the flares contain deadly radiation poisoning, that even a single solar flare could kill you, and that while you might survive one and even two if you are lucky, you would never survive three in a row
They may well kill you if unprotected, but behind aluminium shielding the dose would be unlikely to be fatal. That would be on an X-class flare.
and the five that happened during Apollo 17's flight at solar maximum, would have meant certain death; never mind the four "major" flares that also took place during those two weeks they pretended to be visiting the moon.
There were more than 5(none classed as major), but they were neither X-class or came anywhere near the Earth. In between Apollo 16 and 17 there was a major x-class CME that could well have killed anybody hit by it.
The energetic particles contained in solar flares are also caught up in the earth's magnetosphere, where the electrons tend to travel towards the poles and produce the aurora lights in the northern and southern skies.
Electrons and protons.
But the protons remained stuck in bands of radiation and die a slow death of five to ten years before losing their charge.
Completely wrong.
Van Allen radiation belt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The belts contain energetic electrons forming the outer belt and a combination of protons and electrons forming the inner belt. In addition, the radiation belts contain lesser amounts of other nuclei, such as alpha particles. The belts pose a hazard to satellites, which must protect their sensitive components with adequate shielding if their orbit spends significant time in the radiation belts."
Hence, flying through the Van Allen belts at solar maximum is another sure fire way to receive a large dose of radiation...
IF they went through the denser regions - they didn't.
IF they were unprotected - they weren't.
IF they stayed any degree of time - they didn't.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuH4rxda3Z4]TLI Orbit Slice View - YouTube[/ame]
and energetic particles carry a much higher charge than the man made radiation we dole out for x-rays.
That is more gibberish. The problem is not the charge but the flux and relative attenuation. You can't compare the two.
Energetic electrons are ten times the electron volt administered by our x-ray machines, while energetic protons are 100-1000 times higher in charge.
WHAT energetic electrons are ten times the x-ray level? This is just more made up B/S. Some particles in the VAB may well be that strong, the solar wind massively reduced during solar maximum(!) is nowhere near the level of even a normal chest x-ray.
Hence, flying through the Van Allen belts at solar maximum is a deadly affair all its own, because those protons are brand new and they are buzzing at 1000 times the electron volt charge of man made x-rays.
You said that before. It's not a given that they are "brand new", they are predominantly electrons and the "1000 times" bit is made up crap.
IF they went through the denser regions - they didn't.
IF they were unprotected - they weren't.
IF they stayed any degree of time - they didn't.
All four of Apollo 17's "major" flares would have been caught up in the Van Allen belts and awaiting their return to earth; and lets nor forget that one of the centuries biggest CMEs happened just prior to Apollo 17 launch, so it was captured in the radiation belts and pouring into that flight as well.... supposedly.
You said that before as well. It's still totally wrong. The highlighted bit was the only danger to Apollo.
In reality, none of the Apollo flights received any radiation at all. The dosimeters all read one REM or even less than one REM for every single Apollo mission.
Well done!
IOW, they were all near earth orbits in the same protective range that the space station maintains; roughly 200 miles up.
That is a bare assertion with only your big fail post to back it up. Rejected.
Manned flight has never gone beyond that range. Neither are we able to do so.
Bare assertion again. Rejected.
A thin layer of gold does not protect against radiation poisoning on earth, let alone the energetic radiation poisoning of the sun's rays.
Strawman. An 8g cm^2 hull protects just fine. Ask any space radiation expert.
Manned flight to the moon or Mars is nationalistic propaganda, not honest science.
Bare assertion again.
Radiation shielding requires a very dense element, remember, you are trying to block a sub-atomic particle, and those dense elements like gold and lead are also the heaviest elements we work with; meanwhile, space craft is made of super light materials on account of fuel and payload and overcoming the earth's gravity. So, blocking energetic particles in space is a non-starter. The entire capsule would need something like six feet thick gold to fully protect it's occupants... and forget about windows because radiation poisoning would flood in through those and kill everyone inside.
That whole paragraph - for a major solar event correct. For short term missions not at all.
The days of pretending that energetic particles are innocuous radiation poisoning are far in our technological past. We've known better for a long, long time in terms of sun science. The biggest thing being studied by science today is the sun. Google sun science and you will immediately realize that we are studying it at every level of the electromagnetic wave spectrum. Today we know what those sun spots are, they are nuclear fission chain reaction explosions, and they are kicking out energetic particles that are extremely deadly to living flesh. Flares are just bigger explosions in a chain of explosions that carries on for hours on end. Even a small sun spot is an ongoing chain reaction nuclear explosion the size of planet earth... try to wrap your head around the scale of radiation poisoning being emitted by our sun's weather. That's what space beyond the earth's magnetosphere is filled with.
Once again, you make big claims but do not provide figures/citations/references - or anything at all.
None of the Apollo missions ever ventured into that deadly space.
Yes they did. They brought back 842lbs of lunar samples peer reviewed by a whole other branch of experts you also know nothing about.
EPIC FAIL. NEXT.
