Computational Study of Radiation Protecting Materials for Crewed Mars Surface Settlements

Crewed settlements on other worlds will need to be established as humanity continues exploring beyond our home planet, as this will be beneficial to the advancement of technology and exploration. With this goal comes many challenges that astronauts and scientists alike will need to overcome. One of these challenges is how to shield the astronauts on the surfaces of other worlds, like Mars, from the intense space radiation environment. I conducted a study on the effectiveness of different materials and combinations of materials to determine which combinations could potentially be used to design effective radiation shields that minimize the radiation exposure to astronauts living inside surface habitats on Mars. I found that a shield designed using the in situ Martian regolith provided adequate protection for a short-term (200 days or less) mission; however, a shield composed of polyethylene provided better shielding characteristics to reduce the radiation dose to levels below the desired threshold for long-term missions, which I’ve defined as missions that last for 500 days or more.