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I cant speak for NorthMountain, but as for myself, I have a masters and engineers degree is Astronautics and Aeronautics. I studied space environment (which includes the Van Allen Belt physics) in graduate school. I had experiments fly on space shuttle missions where theoretical effects of the belts on charged particles from an ion emitter were verified by experiment. I have studied the belt radiation effects and accumulated dosage on solar arrays, electronics, and shielding. The belts trap highly charged particles and spending lots of time in them can cause radiation effects, but passing through them to get to the moon or mars or anywhere else is not fatal, and can be mitigated by shielding.

Ignorant people who are here to disparage those who are educated in these matters are no better than the ignorant people who disavow the great history of our nation. You might as well be a zombie.

The belts trap highly charged particles and spending lots of time in them can cause radiation effects, but passing through them to get to the moon or mars or anywhere else is not fatal, and can be mitigated by shielding.

We did not have the shielding technology needed to pass safely through the Van Allen Belts in 1969. Heck, we didn’t even know the extent of the belts. Later probes even found additional belts! NASA said our pilots navigated using stars.?.? Well, they would have had to since navigation computers were not powerful enough. Do you believe they navigated 238,000 miles using the stars they said they couldn’t see? Additionally Solar irradiance outside the belts is deadly. What protected our young men from this?

I had experiments fly on space shuttle missions where theoretical effects of the belts on charged particles from an ion emitter were verified by experiment.

Why do you think your experiments were always below 1000 miles?