European Space Agency

The quote about radiation in space and the Apollo project

Just before the Apollo 8 flight would take place, which marked the first manned space flight beyond Low Earth Orbit, an interesting development took place. Dr G.I. Petrov, head of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, made an alarming statement in the Russian newspaper Pravda. He highlighted the importance of acknowledging the concurrent period of intense solar activity during the Apollo 8 mission. Dr Petrov expressed concerns about the potential risk of exposing the three American astronauts to high levels of radiation. Newspaper clipping 1, newspaper clipping 2

In addition to the previous point, it is worth noting that in 1968, Prof. Piotrowski, who was leading the space research committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences, along with Prof. Paczkowski, the chairman of the space commission, expressed their strong disapproval of the Apollo 8 flight. They argued that the mission was launched prematurely, lacking the necessary scientific rigor. Newspaper clipping 3

The concerns expressed by Prof. Piotrowski, Prof. Paczkowski, and Dr. Petrov regarding radiation in space and the lack of scientific rigor continue to be significant even today, just as they were in 1968. This becomes evident when we read the European Space Agency website, where they openly acknowledge the hazards associated with radiation during space travel. They openly admit that the Apollo flights to the moon were not primarily driven by scientific objectives. In fact, the ESA even describes the Apollo moon missions as being simply lucky.

Quote from the ESA website: 

"Beyond Earth’s magnetic field spacecraft and their occupants will be exposed to the full force of the GCR (Galactic Cosmic Rays) and the solar eruptions. Missions to the Moon and Mars will venture into this harsher and unpredictable radiation environment for periods of many month or even years.

During the Apollo missions of the 1960s–70s, the astronauts were simply lucky not to have been in space during a major solar eruption that would have flooded their spacecraft with deadly radiation. Essentially, they took risks and got away with it. For the kind of long-duration journeys being talked about today, a far more robust system of predicting radiation doses is required.

The main uncertainties in these calculations are our knowledge of the space radiation environment beyond the Earth’s magnetic field, and the biological response to radiation, says Ersmark."

Credits quote to ESA website 2024