It turns out water is great at blocking radiation. But using water as a protection system has its challenges.
A team from the Polymer Chemistry and Biomaterials Group (PBM) at Ghent University in Belgium is looking into a new option: superabsorbent polymers (SAPs).
These materials might be safer and more effective than water alone.
SAPs can soak up hundreds of times their weight in liquid, similar to those “grow monster” toys that expand in water. When swollen with liquid, they’re called “hydrogels.”
📹 ESA – European Space Agency 📸 Lenny Van Daele/Johan Dubruel
Just think about the amount of food and water that a crew of astronauts would need to go all the way to Mars, as well as all the mental, physiological, and, most importantly, radiation risk challenges. How about we avoid all of those issues by putting the astronauts to sleep?
The main problem is that humans don’t hibernate. Astronauts would have to take a drug to induce hibernation and enter sleeping pods, quiet environments with low lights, high humidity, kept at temperatures below 10°C.
Hibernation not only promises to benefit astronauts in space, but it may also offer new potential applications for patient care on Earth.
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