Russia and the United States will work out requirements for protection against cosmic radiation at the near-moon station

At the end of 2018, a joint working group of Russia and the United States will begin work, which will develop the requirements for protection against cosmic radiation at the international near-moon station Deep Space Gateway. The parties agreed on this in December 2017, according to Izvestia.

The joint group will be composed of specialists from the Institute for Biomedical Problems (IMBP) of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the NASA Human Research Program.

Unlike the ISS, astronauts at the Deep Space Gateway station will not be protected from space by the radiation belt of the Earth. At the same time, it is assumed that they will be at the station for many months, without the possibility of an urgent return to Earth, even in the event of an emergency situation.
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The Russian-American Commission must determine the requirements for protection against cosmic radiation and assess the permissible duration of a person’s stay in the Moon’s orbit.

The impact of cosmic radiation on the human body is uncharted territory. Scientists do not yet have reliable data in this area: “This is an unexplored question. “No one can say what kind of protection is required to be put on a spacecraft for a long-term stay outside the radiation belts,” said Ivan Moiseev, the scientific director of the Space Policy Institute. - ISS flies below their level. It’s impossible to stay inside the belts for a long time, the level of radiation is too high. And above them is an unexplored area for which there are no standards. The medical team must indicate how many people can stay at the station, with what protection. Until these issues are resolved, it makes no sense to design the Deep Space Gateway. ”

NASA does not yet confirm the fact of the final formation of a joint commission with Russia: “We are negotiating with partners to study human life in space,” NASA said. “The paperwork on the establishment of a joint biomedical commission on the Deep Space Gateway has not yet been completed.”

At the same time, the Russian-American joint working group on space biology and medicine was already formed in 1971. She participated in organizing and conducting joint projects of Soyuz-Apollon, Mir-Shuttle, ensuring medical and biological cooperation on the ISS, and American experiments on Russian satellites Bion and Foton.