To be realistic, most if not all of the first colonizers of Mars are going there to die. Unless the life expectancy is reduced significantly it‘s probably low priority. Also Musk‘s problem solving strategy is to solve them when they need to be solved. Not sooner.
The specific issue threatening Mars missions is how bone injury from deep-space radiation couples with bone loss from microgravity. They are different mechanisms and we simply don't know how they interact.
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and the only way we're going to learn it is to do it.
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otherwise, the radiation is equal to a pack of cigs a day. so if we just grab smokers off the street and jam them in the rocket without cigs, they'll be no worse off.
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We’ve done super long trips in LEO which have both microgravity & radiation. The radiation (which includes some trapped radiation, BTW) was half as intense but trips lasted well over twice as long as transit. We’ve got some idea now. It’s simply no longer a complete question mark
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That is, after all, one of the main points of doing ISS (and Mir for that matter) in the first place.
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