Spaceflight radiation carcinogenesis Spaceflight radiation carcinogenesis Astronauts are exposed to approximately 50-2,000 millisieverts (mSv) while on six-month-duration missions to the International Space Station (ISS), the Moon and beyond. The risk of cancer caused by ionizing radiation is well documented at radiation doses beginning at 50 mSv and above. Related radiological effect studies have shown that survivors of the atomic bomb explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear reactor workers and patients who have undergone therapeutic radiation treatments have received low-linear energy transfer (LET) radiation (x-rays and gamma rays) doses in the same 50-2000 mSv range. While in space, astronauts are exposed to radiation which
Biological effects of radiation on the epigenome stimulus can cause beneficial adaptations in an organism. The ionizing radiation stimulates repair proteins that are usually not active. Cells use this new stimuli to adapt to the stressors they are being exposed to. In biology, the bystander effect is described as changes to nearby non-targeted cells in response to changes in an initially targeted cell by some disrupting agent. In the case of Radiation-Induced Bystander Effect, the stress on the cell is caused by ionizing radiation. The bystander effect can be broken down into two catagories, long range bystander effect and short range bystander effect. In long range bystander