NASA is offering an award of up to $30,000 for innovative designs to protect a spacecraft’s crew on the journey to Mars.
The US space agency, which recently awarded $12,000 to five winners of a challenge to mitigate radiation exposure on deep space missions, is developing the capabilities needed to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars in the 2030s.
“We are very impressed with the enthusiasm and sheer number of people from the public, who showed interest in solving this very difficult problem for human space exploration,” said Steve Rader, deputy manager of the NASA-supported Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation.
“We look forward to seeing what people will come up with in this next challenge to find the optimal configuration for these different protection approaches,” Mr. Rader noted.
Radiation concerns Galactic cosmic rays (GCRs), high-energy radiation that originates outside the solar system, are a major issue facing future space travellers venturing beyond low-Earth orbit.
These charged particles permeate the universe and exposure to them is inevitable during space exploration.
Anyone can participate in the challenge, which will be open from April 29 to June 29, 2015.
