It's still over-played. People keep making un-quantified assumptions about the risk, and this adds a sort of dark cloud of foreboding to everything about the topic. We need to use quantified estimates of the risk.
The astronauts need to know the risks and accept or reject them.
If we wait until we remove any kind of risk like this, we literally will never go.
Actually, crew will be sent to L2 and to the lunar surface, and beyond L2.
At no point did anyone state that NASA will never go anywhere. it just seems like it.
Is this a rather poor attempt at FUD to support lunar only missions and nothing else?
As proof, DSH has almost ZERO GCR protection and it plans to go somewhere. Orion to L2 in 2021 for four days and almost Zero GCR protection! Constellation and 6 day lunar sorties and almost zero GCR protection.
IOW: think very short term missions in terms of days.
But when you think in these terms, one asks, why send the crew at all?
Why not add in a really critical scientific objective?
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What will happen is this: NASA will define the risk to be 3% risk of developing cancer with 95 percent certainty (or fill in the the correct values), and when any crew member reaches this threshold, their career is OVER. Some have suggested that waivers be included in the process.
The more protection that is added, or the higher acceptable risk is accommodated, then the less number of crew is needed, or vice versa, for a given set of missions. So the first spinoff is that by including protection, a reduction in training needs is possible over the long term.
One thing however is quite clear: the length of the trip to Mars or even to an asteroid and back is not possible without substantial increases in risk and age (back to the grumpy old men crew with a waiver). it will be interesting to see how this plays out, hopefully on a new thread!
Go back to lunar sorties, or live like moles on the lunar surface underwater or under regolith, or start working on GCR protection that will have GUARANTEED spinoffs back to earth. Quite a challenging, rewarding, and critical program
The choice is .... oops almost said 'yours'.....the Congressional Design Teams' (CDTs).
Oh well...back to checking the status of 4 new engine development programs,
abundant chemical and the
oxymoronic HLV depot centric architecture.....
This approach however, just seems so much more strategic:
The L2 Gateway in essence provides a long term critical science goal to economically develop GCR protection strategies, increases flight rates, and provides guaranteed spinoffs back to earth with the flexible option of proceeding with other missions and technology challenges once solutions are found and demonstrated. It is most certainly not a destination, only a critical stepping stone.
