Good day,

Experiments were conducted during the Apollo missions to learn about the
environment in space outside the protection of Earth's magneto sphere.
Going to the Moon with no atmosphere or magnetic field leaves you open to
high energy particles.  Mars will not be much better with its thin
atmosphere.  Even here on Earth the high energy particles hitting our
atmosphere can generate a shower of secondary emissions which you hope are
reduced in energy by the time they strike you.

Dr. Tony Phillips has info on a more recent hit by high energy particles
from our Sun.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/10jun_newstorm.htm

What kind of Sun block would you devise?  How will you protect yourself on
the Moon.  How much warning will you have?

When you think of something that is not heavy or strong like a piece of
grass and then see a stalk impaled in a pole after a storm you know that
something going fast can do damage to you.  When you think of filling a
party balloon with Helium or an even lighter gas like Hydrogen, you don't
think of it being able to do harm. (except maybe by lighting a hydrogen
filled balloon and watching it go pop).  What harm could a Hydrogen atom do
with its electron stripped off and thrown at you?

You watch a baseball game and they clock the ball in the 90 mile an hour
range.  How fast do you throw and atom to get from the Sun to Earth in a
minute?  Now what kind of energy is given up when you try and catch this
little nit in your glove?  That is a zinger.

Is this a problem or an opportunity for you to put on your thinking caps and
marvel at the universe and realize just how little we know as we learn more
everyday.

What will you use for a force field that can deflect this kind of bullet?

Dr. Phillips says," Stay tuned for more on this topic in an upcoming
Science at NASA story, 'Radiation Shelters: Don't Leave Home Without One.'"

Check out other interesting posts at http://science.nasa.gov/  The Moon is
full and looks even larger to our eyes than to a camera. Mercury, Venus and
Saturn are converging for a spectacular close encounter this weekend.

Larry Kellogg
http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg

Why does a bull wipe snap?  How fast can you flick magnetic lines of flux,
and how do you catch a wave with your surfboard?  Ever throw an arrow with a
throwing stick?
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http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/10jun_newstorm.htm
Going to the Moon? Be careful. A new kind of solar storm can take you by
surprise.

June 10, 2005: January 2005 was a stormy month--in space. With little
warning, a giant spot materialized on the sun and started exploding. Between
January 15th and 19th, sunspot 720 produced four powerful solar flares. When
it exploded a fifth time on January 20th, onlookers were not surprised.

They should have been. Researchers realize now that the January 20th blast
was something special. It has shaken the foundations of space weather theory
and, possibly, changed the way astronauts are going to operate when they
return to the Moon.

Sunspot 720 unleashed a new kind of solar storm.

Scant minutes after the January 20th flare, a swarm of high-speed protons
surrounded Earth and the Moon. Thirty minutes later, the most intense proton
storm in decades was underway.

"We've been hit by strong proton storms before, but [never so quickly],"
says solar physicist Robert Lin of UC Berkeley. "Proton storms normally
develop hours or even days after a flare." This one began in minutes.
snip

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