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Old 21-September-2006, 08:59 PM
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Kiless-- they were in the belts for just a few minutes. Inner, outer, it doesn't matter. Since they weren't in them for long, they didn't get a lethal dose of radiation. Elevated levels, yes,; lethal, no.

If you sat in the belts long enough, you'd die from radiation, but that would take hours or days, so it wasn't a concern for Apollo.

As I like to tell people: of course the van Allen belts are deadly-- there's no air in them!
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