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The video has many interesting themes, but most of them are cut short, as if this is a teaser version of a much more detailed and longer version that shows the "rest of the story" for most of the segments. For example, the daughter of James Van Allen is in the middle of describing her father's trip to Russia when the interview with her abruptly ends with her childhood sense of the Cold War "not being so cold."
It would be nice to have more background behind the claims that modern space flights are hampered by the Van Allen Belts problem. I have heard these assertions but where is the "official" version? Is there that much of an information suppression that no one in any position of current active projects is willing to make any public statement that our present-day astronauts cannot penetrate the Van Allen Belts because the X-rays generated, by the particles inherent in the Belts coming in contact with the metallic spacecraft surfaces, would have a lethal intensity of radiation?
The testimony of one man in the second half (his name was not shown written) that during the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, he contacted the manufacturers of space suits used in the Space Program (NASA) asking if their suits could be used at Fukushima, is most revealing. He says they all told him the space suits have absolutely NO protection against radiation built in to them, and that they highly recommended AGAINST using such suits at Fukushima, or at any other nuclear radiation sites.
Nowhere in this video do they mention the fact that in all hospitals today, X-ray rooms and radiology specifications for walls and employees' safety entail the use of lead sheets of various thickness. An X-ray tech, whose job it is to shoot images of patients who are generally lying on a table, before the camera is powered up, must go stand behind a protective wall that has a lead sheet surface (generally covered by paint so the lead is not visible as lead). The entrance door to the X-ray room has a layer of lead about 0.125" thick (1/8th inch), just as all the walls, floor and ceiling of the rooms do, meaning that a door 3'-6" wide and 7' tall will weigh an EXTRA 176 pounds (lead weighs 0.4 #/cu.in.), due to the lead layer covering its surface on one side. If you have ever pushed one of those X-ray room doors open or closed, you would have noticed it has a reluctance to move, and that is due to its mass, or weight, and its consequent inertia. The hinges, for example, of such doors must be double ball bearing hinges with oversized screws. and a reinforced jamb and even a stronger wall is necessary in order to hold the additional weight of the door.
A space suit would therefore have about that much more weight (or mass in weightless environment), and would be so much less maneuverable, due to the extra mass of any lead layer to protect the person wearing it. How to make such a layer flexible is a whole different problem.
I have never heard of any space suits that have a lead layer to shield the wearer from radiation. Such a thing would be enormously cuмbersome, and difficult to use. And I have heard mention of how spacecraft would weigh considerably more with such a layer, perhaps about 40% more. The additional cost of rocket fuel and reduction in payload would be enormous, since (as one man in this video says) you get less than twice the additional payload from an increase of twice the rocket fuel. (The dead weight of the initial fuel load is counted as "payload" for the launch itself).
Therefore, all the various images we see of astronauts doing "space walks" around the Shuttle or Space Station (the Oscar-nominated "Gravity" for example), are showing space suits with absolutely zero protection for radiation. Therefore, any such activity would have to take place BELOW the Van Allen Belts. Traveling to the moon requires passing THROUGH and going BEYOND the Van Allen Belts. To do so, would mean any human being without any radiation protection -- meaning enormous lead shielding (unless there is some other means!) -- would be FRIED to a CRISP, and return as a "crispy critter" (I have a friend who is an X-ray tech and that's his term for victims of car fires whose remains he has to X-ray for forensic research and docuмentation.) In the military, they say, "You would be toast."
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