The South Atlantic Anomaly and Space Suits

Thinking about human survival, and thinking about the environment, I was given pause by a program I watched about the South Atlantic Anomaly, where the Van Allen Belt comes closest to Earth.  This is the magnetic field which protects us from sun spots, solar flares that have destroyed the atmosphere on Mars, for example.



It is a bit of a problem because satellites that pass through it can burn up their electronics, so they must be shut down when they pass through it.  It seems that it is growing and getting worse.  The big problem is that the magnetic field that protects us is getting weaker.  Eventually, the field may temporarily disappear before it switches poles and is restored to full strength (note to geneticists, would such a weak field cause a plethora of mutations, and would this account for Stephen J Gould's notion of punctuated equilibrium?).

This will require that we build whole cities under roof of some kind.  And it will probably require that we wear space suits, or environmental suits.  In fact, as I came back from Argentina recently, I wondered when they would require that passengers wear environmental suits, and why such suits don't already exist for the crews who routinely travel 5 miles up and are that much closer to all the radiation.

And that reminded me that we already wear environmental suits, our clothes.  None of us wants to be exposed to the "elements" in winter, but none of us wants too much sun in the summer.  But if the South Atlantic Anomaly gets stronger, we may all need to think about this more seriously.

Should we be building villages and cities with total contiguous protection from the sun?  Will roofs need special protection?  And when will we need to think about this?  Shouldn't there be serious research be on-going to find out how long we have and what we can do to protect ourselves? 

One idea that was proposed to protect travelers to Mars was to put a great deal of water between the humans and the sun.  Water would serve as a sufficient layer to absorb the sun's lethal radiation.  Perhaps we will use a pool of water as a layer on top of every building as a protective layer.

Perhaps weather reports will include a solar flare report because light travels at 6 trillion miles per hour, while solar flares only travel at a one million miles per hour.  So, you would see a flare 8 minutes after it occurs, while the solar flare itself would only get here 90 minutes later.  You have time to run for cover.

As I recall, there is a type of plastic that helps to protect one from radiation, perhaps all our clothes will come with such a layer.

Certainly, with the South Atlantic Anamoly a reality, we need to start thinking about this...