Determining Radiation Shielding Capability of the Earth’s Atmosphere from FAA Radiation Data

The FAA, using its CARI-6 program, provides galactic cosmic radiation dosage rates for any location on the Earth from ground up to 60,000 ft (≈18,300 m). One way to protect astronauts from galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) on a Mars mission is to use material shielding. However, current radiation shielding code does not model shields thicker than about 100 to 200 gm/cm2, and it has been shown that this shield thickness is insufficient to provide protection for a trip to Mars. There is effort underway to extend the code to thicker shields, but there is a lack of experimental data to use to verify the code. The atmosphere represents a very thick and effective radiation shield, and that atmospheric radiation data might be used as a source of verification data.