The life saving role of radioadaptive responses in long-term interplanetary space journeys

Abstract

It has been estimated that exposure to unpredictable extremely large solar particle events would kill the astronauts without massive shielding in interplanetary space. The high LET component of space radiation, neutrons especially, makes the major contribution to the genetic risks. Recent findings concerning the induction of adaptive response by neutrons and high cumulative doses of gamma radiation in human cells have opened a new horizon for possible implications of radiation adaptive response in human. Screening the candidates of long-term space missions by in vitro adaptive response studies help to identify the individuals with low radiation susceptibility and high radioadaptive response. In these selected individuals, chronic exposure to elevated levels of space radiation during a long-term mission can considerably decrease their radiation susceptibility and protect them against the unpredictable exposure to relatively high radiation levels caused by solar activity.