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Comparing Radiation Shielding Potential Of Liquid Propellants To Water For Application In Space, John Czaplewski Mar 2021

Comparing Radiation Shielding Potential Of Liquid Propellants To Water For Application In Space, John Czaplewski

Master's Theses

The radiation environment in space is a threat that engineers and astronauts need to mitigate as exploration into the solar system expands. Passive shielding involves placing as much material between critical components and the radiation environment as possible. However, with mass and size budgets, it is important to select efficient materials to provide shielding. Currently, NASA and other space agencies plan on using water as a shield against radiation since it is already necessary for human missions. Water has been tested thoroughly and has been proven to be effective. Liquid propellants are needed for every mission and also share similar …


Measuring Space Radiation Shielding Effectiveness, Amir Bahadori, Edward Semones, Michael Ewert, James Broyan, Steven Walker Jan 2017

Measuring Space Radiation Shielding Effectiveness, Amir Bahadori, Edward Semones, Michael Ewert, James Broyan, Steven Walker

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

Passive radiation shielding is one strategy to mitigate the problem of space radiation exposure. While space vehicles are constructed largely of aluminum, polyethylene has been demonstrated to have superior shielding characteristics for both galactic cosmic rays and solar particle events due to the high hydrogen content. A method to calculate the shielding effectiveness of a material relative to reference material from Bragg peak measurements performed using energetic heavy charged particles is described. Using accelerated alpha particles at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Space Radiation Laboratory at Brookhaven National Laboratory, the method is applied to sample tiles from the Heat …


Structural Micrometeoroid And Radiation Shielding For Interplanetary Spacecraft, Jared Allen Ruekberg Jun 2015

Structural Micrometeoroid And Radiation Shielding For Interplanetary Spacecraft, Jared Allen Ruekberg

Master's Theses

This paper focused on two significant space forces that can affect the success of a spacecraft: the radiation and micrometeoroid environments. Both are looked at in the context of the region of space between Earth and Mars. The goal was create reference environments, to provide context to results of environmental modeling, and to provide recommendations to assist in early design decisions of interplanetary spacecraft. The radiation section of this report used NASA's OLTARIS program to generate data for analysis. The area of focus was on the radiation effects for crewed missions, therefore effective dose equivalent was the metric used to …