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Artemis II and the invisible hazard on the way to the Moon

ansto.gov.au

61–70 of 72 posts

Re: Artemis II and the invisible hazard on the way to the Moon

#61
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we protecting the person with the cookies, or everyone else? I'm struggling to think of the best answer Alpha: In the hand held away from the body would be reasonably safe. In a pocket of a lab coat might provide a little more shielding from the body with the coat material, but it is physically closer. Eaten would be very bad for the user, but protect the outside world the best Beta: Medium penetration, would lik…

Eat the gamma cookie, it's the worst option for any, but with gamma it won't matter much whether it's in your hand, pocket or gut. Pocket the beta emitter, a little bit of shielding will make a big difference. Hold the alpha emitter, if you hold it with just a pair of fingers you will be able to reduce you dosage a lot compared to holding it tightly.

wouldn't alpha be mostly stopped just in pocket ? I'd hold beta emitter, less area of body affected by the radiation if you hold it at distance

Re: Artemis II and the invisible hazard on the way to the Moon

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Final Experiment ( https://www.the-final-experiment.com/ ) essentially did this by inviting "prominent" flat earthers to Antarctica to witness 24 hours of daylight. Very few did, but they are now shunned by the true flat earthers.

So what is it really? A social club? A church? A religion?

Church/religion. Flat-earthers believe in a very literal interpretation of the Bible which dictates that the earth is flat.

When I was doing my student teaching, one of the teachers in my department was a creationist, but he didn’t seem to have read Genesis 1 at all because when I asked him about the firmament in the heavens separating the waters above from the waters below, he had no idea what I was talking about. At least the flat-earthers know enough scripture to follow their dogma all the way to its absurd endpoint.

Re: Artemis II and the invisible hazard on the way to the Moon

#63
post #2

> Dose rate matters. Particle type matters. Direction matters. Shielding matters. There's an old story where a professor quizzes his physics class about how to most-safely distribute different kinds of radiation sources. A common variation involves three baked cookies, emitting alpha particles, beta, and gamma respectively. One must be eaten, one must be held in your hand, and one must be placed in a pocket. A hint,…

Take with iodine.

Re: Artemis II and the invisible hazard on the way to the Moon

#64
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strictly speaking, their existence was verified by Sputnik 2 (though the Soviets only released data on it after the fact, corroborating data from Explorer 1), so if you have a highly _specific_ conspiracy theory, around NASA rather than space stuff in general, that _could_ still work, I suppose?

No, because the Soviets have to in on faking the moon landing. They were also landing a spacecraft at the same time as the landings. To fake the moon landing you'd also have to fake the entire cold war .

And then, of course, there's the Massive Rocket Problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6MOnehCOUw

Re: Artemis II and the invisible hazard on the way to the Moon

#65
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC: * Alpha in hand. Eaten, the "shielding" that blocks it will actually be very active living cells, leading to severe health outcomes. Your external layers of dead skin cells will be be fine, putting it in your pocket would be excessive. * Gamma in hand, because whether it's in your hand or in your pocket, it's roughly the same risk, and most of it is actually going through you without stopping to have an effect.…

Oh, I thought you have to choose one of the options for each cookie, no repeats

You're quite correct, the light of the morning and flu-medicine what I should've written is:

* Gamma is [eaten], because whether [wherever it is], it's roughly the same risk, and most of it is actually going through you without stopping to have an effect. (Compared to other two.)

Naturally there's a whole bunch of unstated "all else being equal" going on, where no cookie's' elements are extra-likely to be permanently incorporated into your bones versus excreted, etc.

Re: Artemis II and the invisible hazard on the way to the Moon

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>The errors caused by radiation are extremely frequent and you definitely must guard against them, otherwise anything will fail immediately in space. I asked this in another thread but I will repeat it here - how come that their bog standard iPhones that they use for taking pictures with are still operating fine then? If like you said, "anything will fail immediately" - doesn't sound like that's the case? They have…

Aren't the stakes a little different with an iPhone that you have for picture taking and entertainment vs the systems that manage your trajectory and life support? The fact that a handful of devices hasn't failed is hardly proof that they can't. Hell, I've driven thousands of times and never actually NEEDED my seatbelt.

>>The fact that a handful of devices hasn't failed is hardly proof that they can't.

Again, that's not what I'm saying. I'm just challenging OP's assertion that any device with no radiation hardening will "immediately" fail, which clearly isn't the case with these devices. That's not me saying that radiation hardening isn't needed, quite the opposite.

Re: Artemis II and the invisible hazard on the way to the Moon

#67
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine you take a conspiracy influencer and actually put them in the spacecraft with the astronauts so they could see the whole thing with their own eyes and wouldn't be able to deny it. They return to earth to tell their followers that it's all real. Do you think everyone will be convinced, or would they say he's now in on the conspiracy and find a new person to lead the conspiracy theory? https://en.wikipedia.or…

The Final Experiment ( https://www.the-final-experiment.com/ ) essentially did this by inviting "prominent" flat earthers to Antarctica to witness 24 hours of daylight. Very few did, but they are now shunned by the true flat earthers.

I believe that is the same event as in my comment.

Re: Artemis II and the invisible hazard on the way to the Moon

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Final Experiment ( https://www.the-final-experiment.com/ ) essentially did this by inviting "prominent" flat earthers to Antarctica to witness 24 hours of daylight. Very few did, but they are now shunned by the true flat earthers.

So what is it really? A social club? A church? A religion?

"Flat Earth"[0] is more like a cult[1]. One introduces a significant barrier to entry. New members learn the approved vocabulary/jargon that identifies "in group" and "out group" people. Outsiders tend to reject new members[2]. New members tend to stay due to the "sunken cost" fallacy. The high barrier to entry and cost of leaving (losing your community - because you will be shunned for doing so) prevents people from leaving or associating with people who have left.

Notes:

0 - https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Flat_Earth

1 - https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Crank_magnetism

2 - This is why religions such as Jehovah's Witnesses require members to proselytize (including going door-to-door) because outsiders are so adverse to the members that the other insiders remark things like "those outsiders are so depraved, that's why you can only be with 'true believers' like us".

Re: Artemis II and the invisible hazard on the way to the Moon

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your friend is trying to "cure" the denier, then it might be helpful for them to learn some of the tactics for reaching/deprogramming cult members. One that might be helpful is "street epistemology". Link: https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Street_Epistemology

That's a bit too much to ask of these folks, I'm afraid, but I did boil it down for him by saying that the real question is understanding why he is inclined to believe its a hoax, rather than trying to pile up evidence in front of him. I suppose that's what "street epistemology" is, though. Nice to have shorthand terms for these ideas. I also included a thought experiment for him: Imagine you take a conspiracy influe…

> the real question is understanding why he is inclined to believe its a hoax, rather than trying to pile up evidence in front of him

This is one of the primary techniques of SE. People are open to answering questions and with some skill with Socratic questioning, you can get results. Dumping data just causes cult/hoax members to feel threatened because you're attacking some core beliefs and they will try very hard to avoid losing a sense of self value[0].

Notes:

0 - "What I believe is wrong" -> "I am wrong" -> "I am a bad person".

Re: Artemis II and the invisible hazard on the way to the Moon

#70
post #8
post #2

> Dose rate matters. Particle type matters. Direction matters. Shielding matters. There's an old story where a professor quizzes his physics class about how to most-safely distribute different kinds of radiation sources. A common variation involves three baked cookies, emitting alpha particles, beta, and gamma respectively. One must be eaten, one must be held in your hand, and one must be placed in a pocket. A hint,…

I heard about this question in the MIT Ionising Radiation course. You can find it here, around minute 47:30 (wont spoil the answer). https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/22-01-introduction-to-nuclear-en...

Thanks, I watched it. There are 4 cookies - a gamma, alpha, beta and neutrino emitter. You must eat one, pocket one, hold one and give one away.
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