[thelambentonion]

> ...the radiation exposure during flight which would be the worse is equivalent to smoking for two years and dropping it...

Please provide a citation for this. As far as I'm aware, we simply have no idea the kinds of effects that radiation encountered during the flight would have on humans.

The sample size for human exposure to space-based radiation is incredibly small (limited to just the astronauts on the ISS, and even then that is protected by much of the Earth's magnetosphere).

[nickik]

Radiation has been studied since the 60s. Multiple Mars mission had the equipment on board to do the measurements. Nothing to surprising was measured, the same results on Curiosity and Viking.

We know a lot about both type of radiation, cosmic and solar. Why know the basic physics, and we know how to prevent it. Both types of radiation have different properties and have different levels of danger, thus need different solutions.

This had been known for a while and solutions are possible. Thus, its not the most important problem in Humans to Mars architecture, as we know much less about reusable rockets and carbon cryo tanks.