You might have been wondering how knowing about radiation and what exactly it consists of can help us protect astronauts. After all, knowing that something is going to hit you when you can do nothing about it doesn’t really improve the situation you are in. There are several ways we can protect astronauts. Whenever we … Continue reading How Do We Protect Astronauts from Radiation?
Author: Martin Losekamm
Germany’s Astronauts
Radiation is omnipresent in space and thus affects all astronauts, be they American, European, Chinese, Russian, or from any other part of the world. However, as a German university group, we naturally have a special interest in “our” German astronauts and their European colleagues. Germany has a long history of manned space flight, dating back … Continue reading Germany’s Astronauts
How Do We Measure Radiation?
Space radiation consists of countless tiny particles—smaller than the atoms in your body—whizzing around at close to the speed of light. How can we detect things so small that no microscope on Earth could possibly reveal them? Most radiation particles carry an electrical charge. Electrons and protons have an intrinsic charge with equal absolute value … Continue reading How Do We Measure Radiation?
Why Do We Need to Test Our Sensors in Space?
So why do we want to perform an experiment on the International Space Station (ISS)? Why can’t we do it on Earth? And why is it so important to us? Thomas and I have been developing new concepts and technologies for measuring radiation for a couple of years now. We started working on it while … Continue reading Why Do We Need to Test Our Sensors in Space?
Why Do We Send Humans Into Space?
Humans have always been explorers. Even when our population was still numbered in the millions rather than billions, the great civilizations of old traveled to the edges of the known world to find out what lay beyond. Today mankind conquered almost every space on Earth. And we discovered that a planet that once seemed incredibly … Continue reading Why Do We Send Humans Into Space?
Let’s Send Humans to Mars
In case you have followed our updates throughout the past weeks, you may have read that we want to support the manned exploration of space. But what do we mean by that? What exactly are the current plans for sending humans deeper into space and, possibly, to other planets? Since the Russian Mir station was … Continue reading Let’s Send Humans to Mars
Our Partners for 3D-DOS — kiwi and SpaceStarters
Last year, the Airbus kiwi team announced a challenge for university teams to get the chance to conduct an experiment on the International Space Station (ISS). Researching technologies to precisely characterize the space radiation environment, Thomas and Martin had a few ideas up their sleeves. Through the support of former German astronaut Ulrich Walter, now … Continue reading Our Partners for 3D-DOS — kiwi and SpaceStarters
What Is Space Radiation and Why Is It Important?
What is space radiation? And why is it so important that we know about it? These are questions you might have asked yourself after going through the profile of our recently launched crowdfunding campaign on SpaceStarters. We try to briefly answer these questions in this post and also point you to some great resources freely … Continue reading What Is Space Radiation and Why Is It Important?
The Start of a New Endeavor
At last we can reveal what we have been working on these past months! Last summer, we participated in a challenge held by Airbus DS kiwi and were selected as one of two university teams to fly an experiment to the International Space Station (ISS). kiwi partnered with the American company Space Tango to give students the … Continue reading The Start of a New Endeavor
Welcome to this World, SpaceRad Laboratory!
After long weeks of deliberations, we have finally decided to found the SpaceRad Laboratory. The company shall support our work as reserachers and PhD students at the Technical University of Munich. It will take a while until we have filled these pages with information about us and our projects, but rest assured: Exciting times are … Continue reading Welcome to this World, SpaceRad Laboratory!