Toward international dose limits for human missions to the moon and Mars

Cosmic radiation is generally acknowledged as the main health risk in human space
exploration. The space agencies are currently adopting different dose limits for their
astronauts. Recently, NASA has revised the maximum career dose, basically releasing the
previous constraints of a 3% excess cancer mortality risk within 95% CI. Russia, Japan, and
ESA are also revising the risk models and corresponding limits. However, for international
missions it will be necessary to reach a consensus, especially for long-term missions such as
Mars, where all current limits will be probably exceeded. ICRP Task Group 115 is currently
trying to reach an international consensus. In this seminar we will describe the efforts of the
TG115 and the impact of the dose limits on ground-based space radiation research.