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
Radiation pressure on objects besides gravity, and where the net effect of a tiny force may have a large cumulative effect over long periods of time. For example, had the effects of the sun's radiation pressure on the spacecraft of the Viking program been ignored, the spacecraft would have missed Mars orbit by about . Radiation pressure from starlight is crucial in a number of astrophysical processes as well. The significance of radiation pressure increases rapidly at extremely high temperatures, and can sometimes dwarf the usual gas pressure, for instance in stellar interiors and thermonuclear weapons. Radiation pressure can equally well be