In article <boorfc$fhn$1@terabinaries.xmission.com>, Jay Windley wrote:

Compared with all of the things that *could* have gone fatally wrong in an
Apollo mission, death by solar flare was awfully remote.

Playing with the Case For Mars numbers on rad exposure, the 2-300 rem
really-bad-day theoretical flare would increase your fatal-cancer risk
over the remainder of your life (let's say the next sixty years, be
optomistic) by about 10%; background risk of dying of cancer, for a
nonsmoker, is 20% So, your chances have just been increased by half.

Radiation sickness is the more worrying part; between 2-300 rem you're
pushing the point at which everyone will be getting radiation sickness,
healthy adult or no, and getting into the regions where someone who's
unlucky might just keel over quickly.

Hmm. Hmm hmm. You'd get your crew back if they were quick off the mark,
I think, but not in a very good shape.

-- 
-Andrew Gray
 shimgray@bigfoot.com