Where do astronauts go during bad space weather? No, that’s not the start of a bad joke.
Turns out, they just duck into Orion’s glorified storage closet. Yep, NASA’s Artemis I mission confirmed that future Moon explorers can avoid getting zapped by cosmic rays and solar storms by hiding in their spaceship’s version of a broom cupboard.
Engineers like Stuart George studied data from an army of sensors plastered all over the fake astronauts on Artemis I. Their plastic heroes, Helga and Zohar, along with detectors, showed that Orion’s storage closet cuts down radiation exposure by half compared to the rest of the ship.
While no solar storm hit during the mission, simulating a 1989 storm suggested the shelter could handle it even better.
So, future missions? Adding “hide in the closet” to their survival strategies works just fine.
