One of the greatest challenges facing researchers is to protect astronauts from the radiation environment in space.
"At the surface of the Earth, we are protected from the most harmful sources of cosmic radiation by the effects of the Earth's magnetic field and the thickness of our atmosphere," Pinsky said. "In space beyond the Earth's atmosphere, the radiation environment is significantly more intense."
As human space exploration ventures farther from Earth for longer periods, stronger and lighter shielding materials for spacecraft must be developed to protect astronauts from the harmful effects of this radiation. To give shielding recommendations, certain calculations must be employed. These shielding calculations also can be used for nuclear reactors and accelerators, and FLUKA is the most widely used and trusted computer code to do this.
Along with UH and NASA, the course is being sponsored by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which is the world's largest particle physics lab where physicists go to explore the make up of matter and forces holding it together, and the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), the Italian funding agency for nuclear physics.
Physicist Johann Ranft at the University of Leipzig in Germany originally developed FLUKA in the 1960s while he was working with CERN. By the late 1980s, the code had evolved through two generations, and Ranft turned over the continuing development and modernization of the code to a group of physicists at the INFN, who work with Alfredo Ferrari, who also is a senior physicist at CERN. The present version of FLUKA is the product of this team of authors.
Following the course hel
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Contact: Lisa Merkl
lkmerkl@uh.edu
713-743-8192
University of Houston
20-Dec-2004