The Exploration Atmospheres Working Group's Report on Space Radiation Shielding Materials

This part of Exploration Atmospheres Working Group analyses focuses on the potential use of nonmetallic composites as the interior walls and structural elements exposed to the atmosphere of the spacecraft or habitat. The primary drive to consider nonmetallic, polymer-based composites as an alternative to aluminum structure is due to their superior radiation shielding properties. But as is shown in this analysis, these composites can also be made to combine superior mechanical properties with superior shielding properties. In addition, these composites can be made safe; i.e., with regard to flammability and toxicity, as well as "smart"; i.e., embedded with sensors for the continuous monitoring of material health and conditions. The analysis main conclusions are that (1) smart polymer-based composites are an enabling technology for safe and reliable exploration missions, and (2) an adaptive, synergetic systems approach is required to meet the missions requirements from structure, properties, and processes to crew health and protection for exploration missions

Thin-shell wormholes from charged black holes in generalized dilaton-axion gravity

This paper discusses a new type of thin-shell wormhole constructed by applying the cut-and-paste technique to two copies of a charged black hole in generalized dilaton-axion gravity, which was inspired by low-energy string theory. After analyzing various aspects of this thin-shell wormhole, we discuss its stability to linearized spherically symmetric perturbations.Comment: Minor changes, 6 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Gen. Rel. Gra

Issues In Space Radiation Protection: Galactic Cosmic Rays

When shielding from cosmic heavy ions, one is faced with limited knowledge about the physical properties and biological responses of these radiations. Herein, the current health is discussed in terms of conventional protection practice and a test biological response model. The impact of biological response on optimum materials selection for cosmic ray shielding is presented in terms of the transmission characteristics of the shield material. Although liquid hydrogen is an optimum shield material, evaluation of the effectiveness of polymeric structural materials must await improvement in our knowledge of both the biological response and the nuclear processes

Performance study of galactic cosmic ray shield materials

The space program is faced with two difficult radiation protection issues for future long-term operations. First, retrofit of shield material or conservatism in shield design is prohibitively expensive and often impossible. Second, shielding from the cosmic heavy ions is faced with limited knowledge on the physical properties and biological responses of these radiations. The current status of space shielding technology and its impact on radiation health is discussed herein in terms of conventional protection practice and a test biological response model. The impact of biological response on the selection of optimum materials for cosmic ray shielding is presented in terms of the transmission characteristics of the shield material. Although the systematics of nuclear cross sections are able to demonstrate the relation of exposure risk to shield-material composition, the current uncertainty in-nuclear cross sections will not allow an accurate evaluation of risk reduction. This paper presents a theoretical study of risk-related factors and a pilot experiment to study the effectiveness of choice of shield materials to reduce the risk in space operations

Black holes in the Einstein -Gauss-Bonnet theory and the geometry of their thermodynamics-II

In the present work we study (i) charged black hole in Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet (EGB) theory, known as Einstein-Maxwell-Gauss-Bonnet (EMGB) black hole and (ii) black hole in EGB gravity with Yang-Mills field. The thermodynamic geometry of these two black hole solutions has been investigated, using the modified entropy in Gauss-Bonnet theory.Comment: 7 page

The geometry of the higher dimensional black hole thermodynamics in Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet theory

This paper deals with five-dimensional black hole solutions in (a) Einstein-Yang-Mills-Gauss-Bonnet theory and (b)Einstein-Maxwell-Gauss-Bonnet theory with a cosmological constant for spherically symmetric space time. The geometry of the black hole thermodynamics has been studied for both the black holes.Comment: 8 page

Improved Spacecraft Materials for Radiation Shielding

In the execution of this proposal, we will first examine current and developing spacecraft materials and evaluate their ability to attenuate adverse biological mutational events in mammalian cell systems and reduce the rate of cancer induction in mice harderian glands as a measure of their protective qualities. The HZETRN code system will be used to generate a database on GCR attenuation in each material. If a third year of funding is granted, the most promising and mission-specific materials will be used to study the impact on mission cost for a typical Mars mission scenario as was planned in our original two year proposal at the original funding level. The most promising candidate materials will be further tested as to their transmission characteristics in Fe and Si ion beams to evaluate the accuracy of the HZETRN transmission factors. Materials deemed critical to mission success may also require testing as well as materials developed by industry for their radiation protective qualities (e.g., Physical Sciences Inc.) A study will be made of designing polymeric materials and composite materials with improved radiation shielding properties as well as the possible improvement of mission-specific materials

Thin-shell wormholes from regular charged black holes

We investigate a new thin-shell wormhole constructed by surgically grafting two regular charged black holes arising from the action using nonlinear electrodynamics coupled to general relativity. The stress-energy components within the shell violate the null and weak energy conditions but obey the strong energy condition. We study the stability in two ways: (i) taking a specific equation of state at the throat and (ii) analyzing the stability to linearized spherically symmetric perturbations about a static equilibrium solution. Various other aspects of this thin-shell wormhole are also analyzed.Comment: 8 pages and 19 figure