Apollo Investigation

Polaris Dawn Report

by Jarrah White
 



Polaris Dawn did not prove that astronauts can survive the radiation
on a flight to the Moon

The past twenty-three years have seen something of an insurgence into space tourism. We have come quite a long way since millionaire Dennis Tito paid for his ride aboard the Soyuz up to the International Space Station (ISS) and the many others who followed in his 386km/240mi footsteps. Nowadays, we don’t need government agencies to get into space, there are entire private companies specifically dedicated to selling space tourism. Blue Origin’s New Shepard offers a trip to the vicinity of the Kármán line some 100km (62mi) from Earth and Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo offers the suborbital 89.5km/55.6mi ‘astronaut’ experience. As of October 2024, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic have respectively flown eight and seven commercial sub-orbital tourist flights. While deep pockets are still a requirement for these very much briefer tourist flights to sub-orbit, many private citizens who can afford the trip have earned their astronaut wings.

Meanwhile, for those who can afford to up the ante, it is Elon Musk’s SpaceX Dragon that is currently the workhorse for getting both governmental and tourist astronauts into orbit. Polaris Dawn, their latest and most ambitious private space mission was finally launched on September 10, 2024.

Fig. 1

Fig 1. Jarad Isaacman becomes the first tourist to perform a standup EVA. SpaceX

The Crew Dragon spacecraft named Resilience was commanded by veteran space tourist Jared Isaacman with three rookies Scott Poteet, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon in tow. Resilience featured the first commercial ‘spacewalk’ (or rather, the first commercial standup EVA); and by boosting its orbit to an apogee of 1,400km/869mi Resilience also beat the record for altitude previously set by NASA’s Gemini XI in September 1966.

Fig. 2

Fig 2. The Earth seen from Gemini XI during its record apogee. NASA

This high apogee created quite a stir across the mainstream media, the Apollo moon landing hoax message boards, and social media postings. Because that altitude of 1,400km exceeds the 1,000km/621mile starting point of the inner Van Allen belt. Naturally, in their coverage of this event the media used very provocative headlines such as, “SpaceX is launching 4 people on a risky mission to fly through radiation belts and do the first commercial spacewalk”1 and “Polaris Dawn: Four civilians embarking on a dangerous spacewalking mission”2 plus “First Civilian Spacewalk on Upcoming SpaceX Mission Faces Dangerous Unknowns”.3 Whether intentional or accidental, many journalists generated quite a lot of exaggerated hype about Polaris Dawn’s daring flight into this radiation zone.4, 5

Meanwhile, many of those in the Moon landing hoax communities, together with the general public, were left wondering, even fretting, as to whether these four space tourists would die from radiation exposure during their mission, or if this was to be yet another hoax. Let it be said: all of the Polaris Dawn’s mission objectives have been subjected to heavy embellishment and overt sensationalism of material emanating originally from the NASA-SpaceX PR departments, but the take home message from this event is this:

Context matters

The September 10 2024 Polaris Dawn mission was, for all intents and purposes, a modern-day recreation of the 1966 Gemini XI mission – virtually to the day.6 For it was on September 12 that astronauts Pete Conrad and Richard Gordon docked with their Agena rocket, which would later be fired to change their near-circular orbit into an elliptical orbit with perigee of 288km/179mi and apogee of 1,373km/853mi.

Fig. 3

Fig 3. Commemorative medallions for Gemini XI (left) and Polaris Dawn X (right). collect SPACE.com

SpaceX even went so far as to recreate the official Gemini XI commemorative medallion for Polaris Dawn! Both these medallions depict their missions' respective spacewalks and apogee record-setting elliptical orbits. Not drawn to scale, the orbits are greatly exaggerated for artistic purposes. But they do emphasize the elliptical geometry at apogee – and the fact that these record altitudes were not held throughout all of the mission. It is because of the orbit geometry, that Gemini XI only briefly skimmed the nearest edge of the inner Van Allen belt during apogee before continuing its orbit back down to perigee.

The Van Allen belts don’t just suddenly stop and start as if one suddenly stepped off the edge of a pool and straight into the deep end, proportionally they are thin at the edges and gradually become more intense inward towards their centers. Think of it as stepping into a pool from the shallow end and wading, then swimming towards the deep end. Essentially, Gemini XI only dipped a toe into the shallow end of this pool of radiation. And it is also important to note that only two of these high-apogee elliptical orbits were made by Gemini XI. After that second orbit, the Agena’s engine was fired again, to lower the spacecraft back down to a near-circular orbit with an apogee of only 296km/183mi which it retained for the remainder of the mission.

But propagandists choose not to tell their readers this important distinction when citing the Gemini missions as ‘proof’ that humans can survive the Van Allen belts. For example, in at least three different sections of his Clavius website, Jay Windley claimed both Gemini X and XI ascended “deep into the inner Van Allen belts" [sic]. 7, 8, 9 He tells his readers of the highest altitudes but nothing else.

During a 2005 debate with Joe Rogan on the Penn Jillette Radio Show, Phil Plait, of Bad Astronomy fame, further embellished Windley’s false equivalence fallacy with this doozy:

In fact, the Gemini missions, which were the warm-ups for the Apollo, went specifically into the Van Allen belts to make sure the astronauts could survive the radiation. So even before the Apollo astronauts had gone in, and that was into the actual Van Allen belts to make sure it worked. You can say: ‘Ah, the shuttle astronauts, they just go into the [South Atlantic Anomaly] for a few seconds.’ [sic] Gemini went in, they tested it, and they showed that in fact the radiation did not go through the spaceship very well and the astronauts would be fine.10

When pressed for further clarification, Plait added:

The Gemini missions went deep into the heart of them and stayed there to make sure these guys could be in it. [emphasis added]

This is not only badly worded it is simply false. The Gemini missions did not go deep into the heart of the inner Van Allen belt, nor did they get anywhere near it. The most intense region, or ‘heart’, of the inner belt is closer to 3,000km/1863mi in altitude.11 Had Gemini XI reached this altitude and ‘stayed there’, it would have been suicidal. According to E.E. Kovalev,12 the equivalent dose rate from 200MeV protons alone is as high as 390rem/day (16.25rem/hr) for a 2,780km/1736mi altitude and an orbit inclined to the equator by 30°. Any brief radiation exposure culminating in several hundreds of rem is considered lethal if not life-threatening to humans. And we’ve not even considered dose rates from the protons at lower or higher energy levels, which will all add up.

Table 1

Table 1. 200MeV proton equivalent dose rates in the inner Van Allen belt. E.E. Kovalev

It is for this reason that James Van Allen’s later retraction regarding the hazard posed by the radiation belts to manned lunar missions, in which he claimed shuttle astronauts would need to orbit in "the most intense region of the inner radiation belt" for one week to receive a fatal dose of radiation, is unsubstantiated. And any propagandist citing his demonstrably dubious retraction obviously never bothered to factcheck it.13

Gemini XI as stated did not ‘stay’ at its record altitude of 1,373km/853mi for very long. And as far as Gemini X goes, Michael Collins himself disputed the claim that his Gemini flight went deep into the proton belt. Instead, he states repeatedly in his Carrying The Fire autobiography that he and Command Pilot John Young only went as high as the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA). Starting on page 212 he writes: “This region, known as the South Atlantic Anomaly, is where the radiation belt dips down, and at 475 miles we will be grazing the bottom of it.”14 [emphasis added]

Phil Plait seemingly did one of three things with his statements: He either misconstrued the claims about Gemini X and XI published on the Clavius website and thought that these flights got high enough to reach the most intense zones and then maintained that orbital profile for the whole flight. Or he played with the fact that, after the Gemini X astronauts had returned to Earth, their Agena performed three orbital manoeuvres. During one of these the rocket was boosted to an orbit of 874miles, which would be ‘deep’ relative to the 475 miles altitude quoted by Collins.15 Or (attempting to ‘win’ the debate) he embellished the story to downplay the hazard.

Only once and fleetingly, does Windley clarify on Clavius that Gemini X only encountered the SAA, not the main belt. But everywhere else on his website, readers would likely walk away erroneously thinking that Gemini X and XI’s respective peak altitudes were constant. Purely because of this misleading exaggeration, with the embellishment of some facts and the omission of others, effectively led by protagandists such as Plait and Windley, many people were invited to believe that Gemini XI was also a hoax – that NASA and the astronauts lied about the altitude reached and just pretended to have spent many orbits within the belts. I admit that even I was initially led astray into falling for that wrong conclusion. But what else could one conclude knowing that the most intense regions deliver hundreds of rem a day and being told Gemini XI 'stayed there'? I've long since refused to take the word of any propagandist without factchecking it.

Keeping Expectations in Check

Michael Collins further states that prior to his Gemini X mission, the medics were expecting doses as high as 19rads from repeated exposure to the SAA. But of course, this was before it was understood that during the time spent orbiting outside the SAA the human body could do some healing from the damage inflicted upon it.

As we are told in the following extract from an interview with the deceased NASA Chief Scientist for Space Radiation Gautam Badhwar. He was speaking to Karen Miller from FirstScience.com concerning the March 8, 2001 launch of Fred the Phantom Torso for its four month stay on the ISS:

Some of this trapped radiation is confined to a region above the coast of Brazil, known as the South Atlantic Anomaly. 'The Space Station goes through that Anomaly roughly five times a day,' says Badhwar. 'The passage takes, at most, 22 or 23 minutes. That's good,' he says.

'If you go through the trapped radiation belt in less than twenty minutes or so, then for the next seventy minutes the body has time to do some repair to the damage done by the radiation. The radiation from solar flares can actually do more harm,' he says, 'simply because it comes at a rate that doesn't give the body time to recover.'

Many propagandists, including Windley and Plait, have often cited the SAA as ‘proof’ that astronauts can survive the main Van Allen belts. For the reasons Badhwar outlined above, this is obviously another false equivalence fallacy. The human healing factor was apparently inconvenient to the narrative they tried to push, because when Mary Bennett cited this fact in a previous Aulis article,16 Windley adamantly denied that astronauts have this healing ability and tried to pin it on Bennett as if she made it up. On Clavius, he wrote:

This is exactly the opposite of the recovery principle. If the shuttle astronauts spend 30 minutes of each 90-minute orbit passing through the SAMA [sic], that sums to an exposure of 8 hours per day. The human body does not recover from radiation in a matter of minutes but rather hours and days. The damaged tissue must be regenerated. If radiation exposure is more or less continuous over several days, such as in the shuttle scenario, the tissue never has time to regenerate before being damaged by continuing radiation.17

Windley actually lengthened Badhwar’s absolute minimum safe time requirement from 20mins to 30mins and did not even attempt to provide dose rates for the SAA – for good reason. If it were true that shuttle or ISS astronauts had no time to recover from the SAA, the radiation damage inflicted upon them would accumulate, just as the Gemini medics had erroneously feared preflight. We can demonstrate the absurdity of Windley’s desperate attempt to push his false equivalence fallacy with some real-world numbers.

Fig. 4

Fig 4. The South Atlantic Anomaly region. Original caption ‘Absorbed dose rate (µGy/min) in silicon at 600 km [373mi] altitude measured with the RAMIS instrument aboard the DLR Eu:CROPIS satellite in March and April 2021.’ Nature18

The thermoluminescent dosimeter (TLD) system carried aboard both the ISS and the earlier Mir station recorded an SAA dose rate of 0.62rad/hr.19 An exposure of eight hours per day would yield 4.96rad/day! This in turn would imply that shuttle astronauts, whose mission durations averaged between ten days to two weeks, would have received anywhere between 49.6rad to 69.44rad. Because the SAA is predominantly protons, this would be equivalent to between 248rem and 347rem (see below). The record for the single longest stay aboard the ISS is 374days.20 This would yield 1,855.04rad, equivalent to over 9,000rem of protons! Such doses are obviously lethal to humans and were never received by a shuttle crew nor an ISS crew. So, unless it is Windley’s argument that the Shuttle and ISS missions were faked, we can safely conclude that his counterclaim that astronauts have no time to heal from the SAA is nonsense.

Again, as was the case with his Gemini X and XI embellishment, I’m embarrassed to admit that Windley’s misinformation denying the human body’s ability to heal from the SAA also left me uncertain about certain Shuttle flights for the longest time.

However, misinformation used as a delaying tactic does not last forever, and trying to argue that humans can survive the Van Allen radiation belts by using demonstrably false embellishment of the Gemini missions data and denying inconvenient facts concerning the SAA ultimately has the exact opposite of the intended effect!

Returning to Michael Collins, later on page 266 of his book,14 he provides a table documenting the Radiation Doses on the Gemini missions in millirads.

Table 2

Table 2 Personal dosimeter recordings for each Gemini astronaut. M Collins

Michael Collins' Gemini X has the highest doses ever recorded: with 670millirads (0.67rad) for John Young, and 765millirads (0.765rad) for himself. He comments:

The reason John and I got so much was simply that our high altitude orbits were grazing the inner Van Allen radiation belt, especially in the critical area of the South Atlantic (the 'anomaly', where the belt dips down to lower altitudes). Even 765 millirads, however, is considered well below the threshold of danger to health.

Going back to page 212, Collins had also noted : “I only know that if I ever develop eye cataracts, I will try to blame it on Gemini X.”

Location, Location, Location

Whereabouts relative to the Earth, were Gemini XI and also Polaris Dawn, performing their respective record apogees? As with real estate on the planet, this is of importance and worth noting. Both occurred above my home country of Australia, which is almost directly opposite the SAA region. According to Encyclopedia Astronautica:

The Van Allen belts are not constant about the planet, being denser in some regions than others. High apogee orbits for Gemini XI were therefore planned to take place over Australia, because the level there is comparatively low. Now Conrad reported to Carnarvon, '... our dosimeter reads .3 rads per hour up here.' Gordon amended this, saying, 'Houston, radiation is revised to .2 rads per hour.' To which Bean replied, 'Sounds like it's safer up there than a chest x-ray.'21 [emphasis added]

On page 200 of Spaceflight & Rocketry: A Chronology, David Baker reports that the Agena was fired to raise Gemini XI’s orbit at GET = 40hrs, 30min, 15sec. The Agena reignited to lower to orbit at GET = 43hrs, 52min, 55sec.22 So, the time spent skimming the innermost zone had to have occurred at some stage between these times. I searched the official Gemini XI transcript,23 and found the following interactions between Gemini XI and the Mission Control Centre in Houston.

The Carnarvon tracking station in Australia picks up Gemini XI's signal at GET = 41hr and 2min. About half an hour after the Agena burn to raise the orbit. It is apparent from the astronauts' statements that they are on approach to the first apogee, as they remark on how much more prominent the curvature of Earth appears. CC means Capcom (Capsule Communicator), C is the Commander Pete Conrad, and P is Pilot Richard Gordon:

41:02:40 C: "I'll tell you, it's GO up here and the world's round."

41:02:43 CC: "You have a good view?"

41:02:45 C: "I mean it's spectacular!"

41:02:47 P: "Bill, it's really fantastic! You wouldn't believe it!"

No indication is given to their altitude, but from their conversations we learn the expected time for when apogee is to be reached.

41:06:08 CC: "Okay. I have your GET of apogee."

41:06:11 C: "Roger."

41:06:13 CC: "41 plus 21 plus 58."

41:06:18 C: "First apogee, 41:21:58.

41:06:20 CC "Roger."

Some three minutes later, at GET = 41hr, 9min, 22sec, Pete Conrad reports the dosimeter readouts of 0.3rad/hr. So we can assume that, with still some thirteen minutes left to go before the first record apogee, Gemini XI has already entered the inner Van Allen belt. Why else would Conrad think it prudent to report the dosimeter readouts? About six minutes later, Conrad requests some information on his second apogee.

41:15:06 C: "Okay. Get us 2nd Apogee time."

41:15:09 CC: "Stand by."

41:15:10 C: "Okay."

41:16:28 CC: "Gemini XI, Carnarvon."

41:16:31 C: "Go."

41:16:32 CC: "Okay. Second apogee will be 43:03:28."

Again, no information is given with regards to their altitudes. At least not during their first high-apogee orbit. For the second, we have more to go on. At GET = 42hr 36min 22sec, the Capcom reports an altitude of 435 miles (700km). Later, at GET = 42hr 38min 51sec, he updates the altitude as 485 miles (780km). Finally, at 42hr 47min 38sec, just before loss of signal, the Capcom radios the following message to the crew: “Gemini XI, this is Houston. You have 30 seconds until LOS and then you’re at 625 miles [1,005.84km].”

This is close enough to the Van Allen belt’s starting altitude. So, we can assume that Gemini XI crossed the boundary into the inner belt at about GET = 42hrs and 47min. About thirty minutes later the tracking station at Canton Island picks up the signal, and we get the following interaction with Gemini XI and Houston via Canton:

43:17:01, CC: “Roger. 653 miles [1,050.9km] now, coming down."

43:17:06, C: “Say again?”

43:17:09, CC: “650 miles [1046.1km] now, coming down.”

43:17:12, C: “Roger.”

43:17:21, P: “Canton, it really is round up here!”

43:17:27, CC: “That’s them all right. We figure you’ve got the 1,000km [621mi] time-to-climb."

Thirty-four seconds later we get to Richard Gordon’s statement that the dose rate is 0.2rad/hr. From this we can conclude that the Gemini XI only spent just over thirty minutes per elliptical orbit within soft boundary of the inner belt. Or about 0.1rad per pass.

For Polaris Dawn, we have rather more precise measurements. An online tracker for the Polaris Dawn mission was published live by the YouTube channel The Launch Pad. I tuned in during one of the flight’s six high-apogee elliptical orbits. I watched it in real time and took screenshots at various intervals.

Fig. 5

Fig 5. Live tracker of Polaris Dawn crossing the boundary into the Van Allen proton belt. The Launch Pad – live stream recording no longer available.

At GET = 20hr 28min 6sec, the Polaris Dawn altimeter read 1,000.3km It continued to ascend high above this altitude for close to a quarter of an hour before it began descending again. At GET = 20hr 59min 30sec, the altitude had dropped to 999.4km/620mi.

Fig. 6

Fig 6. Live tracker of Polaris Dawn exiting the boundary and descending below the Van Allen belt. The Launch Pad – live stream recording no longer available.

That means Polaris Dawn skimmed the innermost edge of the proton belt for only 31min and 24sec. At a dose rate of 0.2rad/hr, this would yield an approximate dose of 0.105rad per apogee. At 0.3rad/hr, this would be 0.157rad per apogee. Gemini XI’s two highly elliptical orbits would total between 0.21rad and 0.314rads; Polaris Dawn’s six would total 0.63rad to 0.942rad.

For comparison, Michael Collins reported that Pete Conrad and Richard Gordon received only 0.029rad and 0.026rad respectively. This is reduced by a full order of magnitude, but the estimates above do not consider the remaining mission duration spent below the innermost edge of the belt which, as Dr. Badhwar stated, allows time for the body to do some repair from the radiation damage inflicted upon it.

Gemini vs Apollo vs Polaris Dawn

Now I am going to assume that the doses that Collins reported are for the absorbed radiation doses, since ‘rad’ and ‘millirad’ are both units for the absorbed radiation dose. While in humans it is more common to use the ‘rem’ radiation unit (roentgen equivalent man), the rem unit is only applicable to equivalent radiation doses, which is the absorbed dose multiplied by a radiation weight factor (WR). These factors vary depending on the type of radiation that irradiated the subject.

For electrons and also photons, WR = 1. So the absorbed dose is equal to the equivalent dose. But for protons, the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) considered WR = 5 for protons >2 MeV. That was until 2007, when for reasons unknown they reduced it to WR = 2. Even though, as stated in my Column #5, WR = 5 seemed more consistent with reported equivalent doses for historical solar flares.24

Using the TLD readouts aboard Mir and ISS as an example, the reported SAA dose rates of 0.62rad/hr would have a proton equivalent dose rate of 3.1rem/hr or about 1.2rem for the twenty-three minutes it would take to cross the anomaly. This dose rate considers the SAA as a whole. Kovalev reported an equivalent dose of 2.5rem/hr for protons at the heart of the SAA. Working backwards, the corresponding absorbed dose rate would have been 0.5rad/hr. Both dose rates are more than twice what the Gemini XI astronauts sustained during their record setting apogee. Which ironically would imply that Conrad and Gordon had a better chance of healing from the radiation inflicted upon them than do astronauts repeatedly exposed to the SAA.

I could not find the coordinates attributed to Gemini XI or Polaris Dawn regarding the magnetic shells (L) and magnetic field strength (B/B0). These coordinates could be plugged into the AP-8 model for the Van Allen inner belt and used to calculate precisely the dose for the mission. However, such coordinates have been attributed to Apollo 11’s outbound trajectory, and I used these to calculate the absorbed and equivalent doses the astronauts would have received. The results were published in my video MoonFaker: Radiation Reloaded 25, 26 The methods for these calculations were also published in that video and reprinted in my Column #6.27

Table 3

Table 3 – click to enlarge. A sample of coordinates for Apollo 11’s outbound trajectory and the corresponding integral proton fluxes and absorbed doses for each coordinate. (The AP-8 model implies Apollo 11 would have first encountered the inner belt during the fifth minute after TLI ignition.) Since Apollo 11 coincided with a Solar Maximum, the AP-8 Max model was used.

Considering all protons between 8MeV and 400MeV (since the Apollo CM walls can only stop protons with energy up to 8MeV), I calculated an absorbed proton dose of ~6.65rad for the two-way trip. Considering a radiation weight factor of WR = 5, the corresponding equivalent dose was ~33rem. However, it is well established that the AP-8 tends to underestimate the proton fluxes by a factor of at least 3 along an orbit inclination of ~30°, (that of Apollo and of Gemini XI). Using this correction factor, I calculated the astronauts would have received an equivalent proton dose of ~99.7rem.

Table 4

Table 4. Total equivalent doses calculated for Apollo 11, with and without the correction factors to the AP-8 Max’s shortcoming considered.

A sample of the corresponding fluxes and calculated absorbed doses is presented in Table 3 and the total corresponding equivalent doses are in Table 4. The attributed coordinates imply that the Apollo astronauts would have first encountered the radiation during the fifth minute of their alleged translunar injection burn. The corresponding coordinates are L = 1.44168 and B/B0 = 2.14962. The totals for the sample doses in this minute of transit are in the order of 0.03rad. Or about 1.8rad/hr. This is already six times higher than the 0.3rad/hour reported on Gemini XI, but, for argument’s sake, let’s go ahead and apply it to Polaris Dawn. Multiplying this sample dose rate by the time it took Polaris Dawn to skim the innermost edge of the Van Allen belt, we get:

(0.0301rad/min)*(31.4min) = 0.94514rad → 0.94514rad*5 = 4.7257rem

From this simple equation, we see that the absorbed dose is just under 1rad. Or only about a seventh of the total 6.65rad absorbed dose I calculated for Apollo 11. And the equivalent dose would be in the order of 4.7rem, again only a seventh of Apollo 11’s equivalent dose (without accounting for the AP-8 underestimations). 5rem is the yearly acceptable limit for radiation workers.28 Receiving close to 5rem in as little as half an hour might lead to a cancerous future.

However, it must be emphasized that Polaris Dawn did not fly this route nor to this altitude anyway. Nor did it fly along the same orbital inclination that was established by NASA for Gemini XI and Apollo 11. There is a directly proportional relationship between orbit inclination and geographical latitude. Orbit inclination describes how inclined to the equator a satellite’s orbital trajectory is. An orbit inclined by 30° will not travel farther than 30° north or south of the equator. These earlier NASA missions were assigned orbits of 28.85°. While the SpaceX Resilience flew a 51.7° orbit (the same trajectory as the ISS).

In writing about the geometry of the inner Van Allen belt, Wright et al 2005 reported, “The particle density is greatest at the equator and low latitudes, then decreases as the latitude increases. By latitude 50° or 60° north or south, the density in the belt is very low.” In writing about the outer Van Allen belt, they add, “However, like the proton flux, the electron flux is highest near the equator and becomes negligible at a latitude of 60° north or south.”29 For direct comparison, as Pascal Xavier proved in an earlier Aulis article,30 Apollo 11’s alleged outbound trajectory never exceeded a latitude above 31.16°.

Table 5

Table 5 click to enlarge. Trajectory parameters from Ignition (in LEO) for TLI through to mid course correction. Note that NASA is using nautical miles in this table. The conversion is nm x1.15078 = one statute mile.

Remember the swimming pool analogy I gave at the beginning of this article? It appears that not only did Polaris Dawn merely repeat Gemini XI’s skimming of the shallow end of the proton radiation pool – its 51.7° inclination to Earth’s equator also ensured it traversed even shallower waters!

Jarrah White

Aulis Online, November 2024

Jarrah WhiteAbout the Author

Jarrah White is an Australian filmmaker, astrophysicist and geologist. He has Certificate III & IV qualifications with distinctions in Screen and Media at the Sydney Institute of TAFE NSW, Australia; and a BSc with a Major in Geology and a Minor in Astrophysics completed in November 2017 and July 2019 respectively at Macquarie University.

References

  1. Morgan McFall-Johnsen (2024) "SpaceX is launching 4 people on a risky mission to fly through radiation belts and do the first commercial spacewalk" Business Insider
  2. E. Ralls (2024) "Polaris Dawn: Four civilians embarking on a dangerous spacewalking mission" Earth.com
  3. P. Rabie (2024) "First Civilian Spacewalk on Upcoming SpaceX Mission Faces Dangerous Unknowns" Gizmondo
  4. D. Welle (2024) "Polaris Dawn: Another small step to Mars?" The Indian Express
  5. S. Fan (2024) "The SpaceX Polaris Dawn Mission Will Show Us How Spaceflight Transforms the Body" Singularity Hub
  6. collectSPACE (2024) "Polaris Dawn crew flies higher than 1966 Gemini 11 orbital record"
  7. J. Windley (2004) "Response to Wayne Green" Clavius Moon Base (Archived)
  8. J. Windley (2005) "Review: A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Moon" Clavius Moon Base (Archived)
  9. J. Windley (2005) "Bart Sibrel's Top Fifteen" Clavius Moon Base (Archived)
  10. YouTube "Joe Rogan & Phil Plait with Penn Jillette | Moon Landing Conspiracy Full Debate" Editor’s note: This 2005 debate (reuploaded to YouTube in 2019) has the relevant segment starting at 6:12mins through to 14:38mins. Interestingly for an astronomer who was also part of the Hubble Space Telescope Team, when asked by Rogan, Plait said that he did not know where the South Atlantic Anomaly started, opining that it was ‘about 200 miles up, about where the Hubble is’. But the Hubble is at 340 miles altitude. He also did not know how many times the ISS passed through the SAA every day. Plait guessed at seven or so orbits. Dr. Badhwar cited five. The ISS makes he 15/16 orbits every day, depending on its altitude. Not all of these orbits encounter the SAA because each orbit (measured as the position where the orbit crosses the equator) shifts to the west by approximately 22.9° of longitude. When it came to the Apollo Missions crossing through the belts, Plait did not have the figures off hand, and would ‘have to calculate them’ but he added that the Apollo astronauts would have been ‘in the belts for a few minutes’. Which hardly conveys NASA’s current information to schoolchildren, which states that Apollo took 52 minutes on a single trajectory through the belts.
  11. D. Wright, L. Grego, L. Gronlund (2005) "The Physics of Space Security: A Reference Manual", American Academy of Arts and Sciences, p37
  12. E.E. Kovalev (1983) "Radiation protection during spaceflight", Aviation Space & Environmental Medicine, Vol. 54, No. 12 Pt 2, ppS16-23
  13. J. White (2023) "Did Dr. James Van Allen change his mind or was it changed for him?" Aulis Online, Jarrah White's Column, No. 6
  14. Michael Collins (1975) Carrying The Fire, Ballantine Books, p212
  15. GSFC (2002) "Gemini 10 Target" NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive
  16. K Miller (2001) "The Phantom Torso" First Science and M Bennett (2002) "An exercise in damage limitation" Aulis Online
  17. J. Windley (2002) "Radiation and the Van Allen belts" Clavius Moon Base (Archived)
  18. M.M. Meier, T. Berger, T. Jahn, D. Matthiä, M.C. Plettenberg, M. Scheibinger, K. Schennetten, M. Wirtz (2023) "Impact of the South Atlantic Anomaly on radiation exposure at flight altitudes during solar minimum" Nature
  19. S. Deme, I. Apáthy, T. Pázmándi, E.R. Benton, G. Reitz, Y. Akatov (2006) "On-board TLD measurements on MIR and ISS" Radiation Protection Dosimetry, Vol. 120, No. 1-4, pp438-441
  20. BBC (2024) "Watch: Space crew returns to Earth after longest stay on ISS"
  21. M. Wade (1997) "Gemini 11" Encyclopedia Astronautica
  22. D. Baker (1996) Spaceflight & Rocketry: A Chronology, Facts on File Inc. N.Y.
  23. NASA, Mission Transcripts: Gemini XI
  24. J. White (2022) "50th Anniversary of the Apollo 16 Major Solar Flare" Aulis Online, Jarrah White's Column, No. 5
  25. J. White (2016) "MoonFaker: Radiation Reloaded" YouTube
  26. J. White (2016) "AP8 Calculation", MoonFaker.com
  27. J. White (2023) "Did Dr. James Van Allen change his mind or was it changed for him?" Aulis Online, Jarrah White's Column, No. 6
  28. J.H. Mauldin (1992) Prospects For Interstellar Travel, An American Astronautical Society Publication, Science and Technology Series, Vol. 80, pp225. Seemingly out of print
  29. D. Wright, L. Grego, L. Gronlund (2005) "The Physics of Space Security: A Reference Manual", American Academy of Arts and Sciences, p37-38
  30. Xavier Pascal and Aulis Editors (2022) "Trajectory of Apollo 11 through the Van Allen belts" Aulis Online

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