Comments by "H. de Jong" (@h.dejong2531) on "NASA Probing Secrets of Van Allen Radiation Belt" video.

  1. We figured out how to get through the van Allen belts in 1962. For radiation, there are 2 important variables: 1. the radiation intensity 2. the amount of time you are exposed to this intensity. You can multiply these two and get the total radiation dose. Humans die if they receive a dose of about 300 Rad. In 1958, James van Allen and his team at the University of Iowa discovered the belts that were later named after him, using measurements from the NASA missions Explorer 1. With Explorer 3 and 4 and Pioneer 3 he measured the radiation intensity. By 1962, we had a good map of the van Allen belt, and this is what it told us: in the part of the belt where the intensity is highest, it is high enough that if you stay for about a week (inside an Apollo command module), you receive a lethal dose. So for the Apollo missions, the trajectory was designed to minimize the amount of time spent there. The Apollo astronauts flew through the belts in about 3 hours, while avoiding the part with the highest levels entirely. The hull thickness of the CSM was more than enough to reduce the radiation level inside to manageable levels. Astronauts' overall exposure was actually dominated by solar particles once outside Earth's magnetic field. The total radiation received by the astronauts varied from mission-to-mission but was measured to be between 0.16 and 1.14 rads (1.6 and 11.4 mGy). More details in this video from Scott Manley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9YN50xXFJY
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  2.  @kimbyrd2298  That's incorrect. In 1958, James van Allen and his team at the University of Iowa discovered the belts that were later named after him, using measurements from the NASA missions Explorer 1. With Explorer 3 and 4 and Pioneer 3 he measured the radiation intensity. By 1962, we had a good map of the van Allen belt, and this is what it told us: in the part of the belt where the intensity is highest, it is high enough that if you stay for about a week (inside an Apollo command module), you receive a lethal dose. So for the Apollo missions, the trajectory was designed to minimize the amount of time spent there. The Apollo astronauts flew through the belts in about 3 hours, while avoiding the part with the highest levels entirely. The hull thickness of the CSM was more than enough to reduce the radiation level inside to manageable levels. Astronauts' overall exposure was actually dominated by solar particles once outside Earth's magnetic field. The total radiation received by the astronauts varied from mission-to-mission but was measured to be between 0.16 and 1.14 rads (1.6 and 11.4 mGy). More details in this video from Scott Manley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9YN50xXFJY
    1
  3. In 1958, James van Allen and his team at the University of Iowa discovered the belts that were later named after him, using measurements from the NASA missions Explorer 1. With Explorer 3 and 4 and Pioneer 3 he measured the radiation intensity. By 1962, we had a good map of the van Allen belt, and this is what it told us: in the part of the belt where the intensity is highest, it is high enough that if you stay for about a week (inside an Apollo command module), you receive a lethal dose. So for the Apollo missions, the trajectory was designed to minimize the amount of time spent there. The Apollo astronauts flew through the belts in about 3 hours, while avoiding the part with the highest levels entirely. The hull thickness of the CSM was more than enough to reduce the radiation level inside to manageable levels.
    1
  4. By 1962, we had a good map of the van Allen belt, and this is what it told us: in the part of the belt where the intensity is highest, it is high enough that if you stay for about a week (inside an Apollo command module), you receive a lethal dose. So for the Apollo missions, the trajectory was designed to minimize the amount of time spent there. The Apollo astronauts flew through the belts in about 3 hours, while avoiding the part with the highest levels entirely. The hull thickness of the CSM was more than enough to reduce the radiation level inside to manageable levels. Astronauts' overall exposure was actually dominated by solar particles once outside Earth's magnetic field. The total radiation received by the astronauts varied from mission-to-mission but was measured to be between 0.16 and 1.14 rads (1.6 and 11.4 mGy). More details in this video from Scott Manley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9YN50xXFJY
    1