The van Allen belt protects the earth from the radiation from the sun (so I was taught). It isn’t the traveling through part that hurts/kills. It’s the on the other side part where you’re exposed to raw gamma radiation from the sun. Every other country couldn’t figure out how to keep things alive outside the belt. NASA figured it out with a little help from Stan Kubrick.
“It isn’t the traveling through part that hurts/kills. It’s the on the other side part where you’re exposed to raw gamma radiation from the sun.”
You have it a bit mixed up. The Van Allen Belts do protect Earth from cosmic radiation. But they do it by collecting radiation and parts of the Belts are very hot. Hotter than space outside of the Belts.