I can not believe as you say Spirit that NASA took a statistical chanch that no solar flares would happen over the course of its missions. Today these flares can be seen in advance, but not then. Do you really think the astronauts would voluntarily chanch a random exposer to simply proclaim our technological superiority to the Russians?

Whenever you do something bold, you always take a chance. When going to space, there are lots and lots of ways astronauts can die. They embrase the mission. Solar flares were just one of the risks. By the way, if you take a look at the Soviet designs for the Soviet Manned Moon program, theirs were a lot riskier! And yes, people do take big risks. :) Even these days when technology is polished and lots of experience is gained, there are million things that may go wrong out there. Still, a lot of people are willing to take the chance to go where nobody (or only a select few) have gone before.

Your 2nd last post relates to current knowledge and technology. None of it was known to Apollo, the necessary measures reguired for protection were not taken.

LOL... sounds like you wrote the script for the movie!

I did enjoy The Right Stuff even if it was balderdash.

Listen. Most of the knowledge was available before Apollo. The first sattelites started to leave the Earth in 1957. An increasing number of them was sent off into deep space to collect all kinds of data. Some people even were not sure if the surface of the Moon was soft or not. A probe was sent to the surface that collected some data and, in the process, made sure that the surface is hard. Feel free to do an independent research on the matter. You'll appreciate how much was accomplished with limited knowledge and technology of the day.

Also take a listen to what Dr. Robert Zubrin has to say about Apollo missions and possible missions to Mars. I'm sure it will be worthy of your time:

Dr. Robert Zubrin - 18th Annual International Mars Society Convention

So,they should just send smokers to Mars without any tobacco on board. Then their risk of cancer will go down. Win win!

Funny, Senior but that's exactly what Dr. Zubrin also jokingly suggested. If you came up with the idea yourself, big thumbs up to you! :)

Sorry,I'm a big Zubrin fan.

I'm glad that we have something in common there, Senior. Hopefully good ideas can be spread around. It's good that the topic came up so that we can share opinions and ideas on these very relevant matters. By the way, soon will be the 55th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's flight. A milestone in the History of Humanity.

Just watched The Right Stuff. Truly is extroidinary how the Mercury Missions continued with all the major mistakes and one disaster killing 3 astronauts. The movies message seemed to portray our goal was to "prove" superiorty to the Russians, throwing all caution out the door.

Those guys in their Flintstone spacesuits strapped in a capsule with those "rockets" underneath being hurled into outer space were absoluty, certifiably crazy.