Space Radiation Protection: Comparison of Effective Dose to Bone Marrow Dose Equivalent

Abstract

In many instances, bone marrow dose equivalents averaged over the entire body have been used as a surrogate for whole-body dose equivalents in space radiation protection studies. However, career radiation limits for space missions are expressed as effective doses. This study compares calculations of effective doses to average bone marrow dose equivalents for several large solar particle events (SPEs) and annual galactic cosmic ray (GCR) spectra, in order to examine the suitability of substituting bone marrow dose equivalents for effective doses. Organ dose equivalents are computed for all radiosensitive organs listed in NCRP Report 116 using the BRYNTRN and HZETRN space radiation transport codes and the Computerized Anatomical Man (CAM) model. These organ dose equivalents are then weighted with the appropriate tissue weighting factors to obtain effective doses. Various thicknesses of aluminum shielding, which are representative of nominal spacecraft and SPE storm shelter configurations, are used in the analyses. For all SPE configurations, the average bone marrow dose equivalent is considerably less than the calculated effective dose. For comparisons of the GCR, there is less than a ten percent difference between the two methods. In all cases, the gonads made up the largest percentage of the effective dose.