The astronauts on ISS, International Space Station, are they protected from the solar storms?
NICKY: Yes. They are. If you know a solar storm is coming you don’t want to have an astronaut outside the space station. They go inside and there are areas that are particularly well-shielded, extra hand sanitizer, to keep the radiation away from them. CHRIS: An extra bottle. NICKY: Extra bottle. It’s very thick shielding. They go inside and avoid going outside until the radiation has gone down. STEELE: We make sure that we tell them when we think that’s coming. CHRIS: That brings up a good point. As we adventure beyond low-earth orbit 10, 20, 30 years down the road, maybe go to Mars one day; solar storms are going to be a huge part. We will have to protect those astronauts as the venture off to Mars. STEELE: Very much so. That’s a concern of NASA’s. That is one reason we have a lot of solar study missions. Very smart people are working on shielding for astronauts for that kind of trip. We’ll have a solution in time. CHRIS: We have a question from Franklin from the internet. Franklin.
