re: #239 thedopefishlives

There are a few practical issues with long-term manned missions outside of LEO. Earth’s magnetosphere is very, very good at controlling radiation inside its umbrella, but once we leave it, things get a lot dicier.

True enough. Radiation is a major issue, as is long-term survival in zero and low-G environments. Plus the issues with modern chemical rockets limits the amount of cargo that can be boosted into orbit, meaning short of adopting some form of orbital construction, we’re pretty limited to what we can send beyond Earth orbit by the size of the rockets we can build.