63 rd International Astronautical Congress, Naples, Italy. Copyright ©2012 by the International Astronautical Feder`ation. All rights reserved. IAC-12-A1,4,19.p1,x13727 Page 1 of 6 IAC-12-A1,4,19.p1,x13727 ANALYSIS OF RADIATION EFFECTS ON ASTRONAUTS FOR A MANNED MISSION TO MARS USING NUCLEAR SPACE PROPULSION Gurunadh Velidi University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, India, guru.velidi@live.in Ugur Guven University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, India, drguven@live.com Rajesh Yadav University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, India, upes.rajesh@gmail.com Seetesh Pande Individual Collaborator, India, seetesh.pande@gmail.com In the advancements of propulsion techniques using nuclear space propulsion methods, one of the main objectives of the scientific community lies in a manned mission to the mars. The effective design of the mission needs various safety systems in place along with the measures for the protection of astronauts. In this view the crew chamber, reactor core, radiation shield and reactors need to be designed with higher expectations as compared to a non-nuclear propulsion system. The life support systems to the astronauts will be more specific to the mars environment. In this paper, we describe the mission design with six manned crew with a gas core reactor designed to work with uranium hexafluoride. Material aspects of the mission, internal radiation due to microgravity fission reaction, radiation to the space environment will be considered. The operation of the spacecraft under critical conditions will be presented as a case future mission planning. The total radiation allowed in protecting astronauts from the risk, as well as effective measure that can be a possibility in reducing total amount of radiation exposure is the major concentration in the paper. The experiences in the planetary exploration will result in development of future missions in solar system exploration, deep space missions and Interstellar travel. Most research to date has been generated towards concepts that offer tremendous performance improvements over current systems. The only problem today is that virtually all of these technologies like electrical propulsion, nuclear thermal propulsion, and plasma propulsion and anti matter beamed- energy sales have very fundamental scientific issues that need to be addressed in the near future. The effort of this work will be one its kind in addressing radiation effects to the crew in a view manned mission to the mars, regardless of the method of propulsion, as well as specific case of gas core reactor utilization. The necessary external as well as internal shielding will be calculated with keeping the overall mission parameters in mind. The paper will also make projections on other manned missions to further destinations in the solar system using the same shielding system. I. INTRODUCTION In the course of the humanity, everyone will agree that the space is the final frontier. It represents the culmination of the dreams of mankind as it allows humanity to look toward the stars for their existence. Especially after the first flight of Sputnik in 1957; the race for space has been fuelled by that dream so that mankind can reach the stars some day. Of course, the first step that needs to be taken is that it is essential to explore the solar system with manned missions as precursors to more advanced missions [1]. However, the problem with this is the fact that planning for manned missions is quite difficult from logistics point of view as it is essential to think about life support requirements for extended missions. While, mankind has been to the moon with a manned mission; it is also a very well known fact that right now, no space agency possesses the capability or the skills to send a manned mission to the Moon right away. Thus, it can be appreciated that it will be extremely difficult with various challenges to send someone to another destination such as the Planet Mars. Besides the Moon, all the space agencies in the world share the dream of sending a manned mission to Mars as the second destination of mankind in his search for the stars. However, the main problem with a mission to Mars is that unlike the 3 day travel time to the Moon; the travel time to Mars can range widely between 275 days to 490 days [2]. Besides the obvious life support requirements such as oxygen, food, etc: one of the biggest problems that need to be handled is the protection against radiation for the astronauts [3]. In a probable mission to Mars, the choice of propulsion will use some sort of nuclear mean to shorten the time of the mission as well as to give it