ISS astronaut Jeff Williams talks about Nikon he uses

[Frank Fremerey]

You will have a lot of other work to do up there....

[MFloyd]

The additional links are great indeed!

The space is not really a fun-only place to be.  The astronauts are exposed to the insane amount of radiation, and iodine tablets are indispensable.

A 10 day journey in space exposes you to an average of 4.3 mSv; airline crews take 3 mSv per year (700 flight hours); maximum allowable seems to be 20 mSv per annum.

[elsa hoffmann]

A 10 day journey in space exposes you to an average of 4.3 mSv; airline crews take 3 mSv per year (700 flight hours); maximum allowable seems to be 20 mSv per annum.

ye - imagine the amount of shooting in that time....
I will eat bacon and hard boiled eggs - and just shoot!

[Bill De Jager]

The space is not really a fun-only place to be.  The astronauts are exposed to the insane amount of radiation, and iodine tablets are indispensable.

Low Earth orbit is not bad, and astronauts have stayed a year or longer.  It's the missions into interplanetary space that will involve excessive ionizing radiation, to the point of potentially being debilitating over the course of the mission.  There's also a non-trivial risk from coronal mass ejections (from the sun) which *do* involve an insane amount of radiation ("insane" as in fatal) if you happen to be unlucky enough to be in their way.

Iodine tablets only make sense when one is exposed to nuclear fission byproducts (from nuclear reactors, nuclear waste, or nuclear bombs) which may include a radioactive isotope of iodine, I-131.  Taking the iodine pills in advance of exposure saturates the thyroid gland with non-radioactive iodine, so when I-131 is ingested the thyroid tends to not take it up quite as much.  Otherwise iodine tablets are of no use for radiation exposure. Link: http://emergency.cdc.gov/radiation/ki.asp

[elsa hoffmann]

Iodine tablets only make sense when one is exposed to nuclear fission byproducts (from nuclear reactors, nuclear waste, or nuclear bombs) which may include a radioactive isotope of iodine, I-131.  Taking the iodine pills in advance of exposure saturates the thyroid gland with non-radioactive iodine, so when I-131 is ingested the thyroid tends to not take it up quite as much.  Otherwise iodine tablets are of no use for radiation exposure. Link: http://emergency.cdc.gov/radiation/ki.asp

What if one doesn't have a thyroid gland anymore- or it is non functioning?  I assume you wouldn't make it on the space ship in the first place - so my question is theoretical.

[Akira]

Low Earth orbit is not bad, and astronauts have stayed a year or longer.  It's the missions into interplanetary space that will involve excessive ionizing radiation, to the point of potentially being debilitating over the course of the mission.  There's also a non-trivial risk from coronal mass ejections (from the sun) which *do* involve an insane amount of radiation ("insane" as in fatal) if you happen to be unlucky enough to be in their way.

Iodine tablets only make sense when one is exposed to nuclear fission byproducts (from nuclear reactors, nuclear waste, or nuclear bombs) which may include a radioactive isotope of iodine, I-131.  Taking the iodine pills in advance of exposure saturates the thyroid gland with non-radioactive iodine, so when I-131 is ingested the thyroid tends to not take it up quite as much.  Otherwise iodine tablets are of no use for radiation exposure. Link: http://emergency.cdc.gov/radiation/ki.asp

Maybe not the iodine tablets, but I've heard that the ISS astronauts need to take some special tablets to reduce the affect of radiation.  As you say, they stay in the far less protected against the radiation than on the ground far longer than the airline crews.