🧪 A radiation vest flew to the Moon and back — and it worked

Solar storms are real enough to plan around. The 1972 burst hit between Apollo 16 and 17 — a crew in transit would have been in serious trouble. The Moon and Mars have none of Earth's atmospheric cover, and no spacecraft shields well enough on its own.

Israeli-American startup StemRad tried a different approach: shield the astronaut, not the ship. Their AstroRad vest rode NASA's uncrewed Artemis I to the Moon and back in 2022. Modelled against a real solar storm, it performs on par with the dedicated shelter inside the Orion capsule.

Decades of spacecraft shielding research kept hitting the same wall: mass. A vest puts that mass exactly where it matters.

It's seen the Moon already. Mars is next.

Ars Technica