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Post by ka9q on Apr 8, 2010 20:02:21 GMT -4
On www.clavius.org/bibmilne.html you quote Milne: to which you reply: Two Apollo astronauts have so far died of cancer: Jack Swigert, of bone cancer in 1982 and Alan Shepard of leukemia in 1998. Leukemia is the form of cancer most closely associated with exposure to large amounts of ionizing radiation, though we have no way to know if Shepard's case resulted from the relatively modest radiation to which he was exposed during Apollo 14. In any event, of the 24 men who have flown to the moon (12 of whom walked on its surface), 6 have died as of April 2010. 18 are still alive. These are not bad numbers for a cohort of ~80 year old men.
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Post by nightfever on Oct 26, 2011 10:51:58 GMT -4
Plus, didn't a lot of the astronauts get cataracts as well?
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Post by zakalwe on Nov 4, 2011 9:30:27 GMT -4
Plus, didn't a lot of the astronauts get cataracts as well? As do a a lot of the elderly population......
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Post by chrlz on Nov 4, 2011 19:43:03 GMT -4
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Post by echnaton on Nov 5, 2011 8:49:32 GMT -4
While it may be to late for the Apollo astronauts to get all the benefits, modern cataract surgery can result in better vision than before the natural lens became clouded. Isn't science grand. I have read that some people opt for the surgery prophylacticly, on the basis that it prevents cataracts anyway, to get the vision improvements of a corrective lens. A easily correctable condition like cataracts is certainly something I would happily risk for a trip to space.
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Post by Glom on Nov 6, 2011 11:23:24 GMT -4
Deke Slayton also got cancer. He flew Apollo (Apollo-Soyuz counts just as much as Apollo 9)
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Post by ka9q on Nov 8, 2011 6:28:18 GMT -4
Yeah, ASTP counts as much as Apollo 9, but I'd count only the lunar missions when discussing the alleged effects of transiting the VA belts and being outside the earth's magnetosphere for several days.
Of course, many astronauts who never left earth orbit got considerably higher radiation doses than those who went to the moon because they spent so much time in space. The Skylab astronauts all got pretty high doses, and two of them (Conrad and Bean) had both walked on the moon. But Conrad died in an accident, and Bean is still healthy to my knowledge.
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