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[Phmcw]

Here's someone that (based off of their credentials) actually knows what they're talking about (Don't mind the wordpress-ness. This is copy-paste'd from a copy-paste of the original thing from Josef Oehmen):

http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/why-i-am-not-worried-about-japans-nuclear-reactors-from-mits-dr-josef-oehmen/

Not bad but proved completely wrong by the latest news. The situation evolved a lot since he wrote that. And he really lack of imagination.

[Tellemurius]

Huh, those suits actually look kinda cool.

You would think something like that would have come out much earlier though and be more readily available.  After hearing about them I did a quick wikipedia thing and saw that it's 3 times more expensive than a lead apron.  I mean we figured out radiation is bad for you nearly a century ago and our most commonly used method of protection still amounts to just holding a lead sheet in front of your vital bits?

its expensive under these conditions: Flexible, lead-free, blocks low level gamma radiation, lightweight, sealed from biological and chemical exposure.


for 1700 bucks thats good for me.

[olemars]

Time-lapse map of all aftershocks since the big quake.

[Darvi]

Huh, those suits actually look kinda cool.

You would think something like that would have come out much earlier though and be more readily available.  After hearing about them I did a quick wikipedia thing and saw that it's 3 times more expensive than a lead apron.  I mean we figured out radiation is bad for you nearly a century ago and our most commonly used method of protection still amounts to just holding a lead sheet in front of your vital bits?

its expensive under these conditions: Flexible, lead-free, blocks low level gamma radiation, lightweight, sealed from biological and chemical exposure.


for 1700 bucks thats good for me.

Especially considering that they can be used to prevent further damage that could end up being more expensive.

[Virex]

Huh, those suits actually look kinda cool.

You would think something like that would have come out much earlier though and be more readily available.  After hearing about them I did a quick wikipedia thing and saw that it's 3 times more expensive than a lead apron.  I mean we figured out radiation is bad for you nearly a century ago and our most commonly used method of protection still amounts to just holding a lead sheet in front of your vital bits?

The problem is density. Protecting you from alpha and beta emission is trivial (alpha radiation is stopped by a sheet of paper and beta radiation is stopped by a sheet of tin foil. 2 sheets if it's really intense). Gamma radiation, on the other hand, can only effectively be blocked by very high density materials and even then you need a pretty large sheet of it. So in essence a lead sheet is the best you can hope to do.

[olemars]

And blocking alpha and beta radiation may create gamma rays if I remember my radiation physics course right.

[Tellemurius]

From what i know, the only countries using it is Belarus (you should know why >_>) and United States for the NBC divisions.




These suits are better as they are lightweight, and you still need a superthick suit even to block all gamma radiation and it will be very stifling.

And blocking alpha and beta radiation may create gamma rays if I remember my radiation physics course right.

they would have to be converted for that >_>

[Darvi]

Well afaik they can be slowed down by certain materials, lessening the probability of a nuclear reaction. But it has been almost 9 months since I last did nuclear physics so no guarantee there.

[Karakzon]

the problem with the suites is:

these reactors are essentialy water filled concrete/lead lined boxes. and the radiation gets out when theirs no water to cool the rods to a degree were they cant burn through their caseings.

as such: a few millimetres or evern a metre of light weight clothing would be next to useless for anything but alpha or beta radiation, gamma in the quantitys that would class as a melt down will go through it like a knife through butter, lead is usefull because its so dense, that any radiation has a high chance of hitting an atom of lead and getting deflected or absorbed instead of walking through it like a pub door during happy hour.

density is required for deflection/absorbtion. but density = weight and makes it highly impracticle. untill they invent and use robotic anti radiation sutes, the poor buggers are going to get some degree of radation weather their in these sutes or wearing mankinis.

eather way, their damn brave and deserve a hell of alot of respect. many many more people would die if they didnt do this. and hundreds of thousands more would suffer. They are heros. more so than many a man in the world, their fate, is a quick death if they fail horribly, or a slow and painfull one if they succede partialy. I dont know their absorbed amounts of radiation, but i doubt any of them will get out without some adverse affects. just hope theyve already had children.

My apolagies for lack of spelling and lack of physics knowledge, but thats as much as i know on the subject and its as good as a dumbed down veiw of the entire affair as your going to get.

[Tellemurius]

Its a nano-suit for godsakes and have you even tried wearing a full lead suit? >_>

Also note that the dentist or radiologist lead stuff only blocks low levels, and that stuff is already heavy and stiff.

[Virex]

And blocking alpha and beta radiation may create gamma rays if I remember my radiation physics course right.

Wouldn't that depend on the ionization energy if the shielding material? (Not that you're better of in that case because that's still going to be x-rays.) Unless the particle actually hits a nucleus head-on it can't really pump more energy into a photon then that and since the odds of hitting a nucleus are pretty low, the amount of higher energy radiation isn't going to be much.

[ChairmanPoo]

Also note that the dentist or radiologist lead stuff only blocks low levels, and that stuff is already heavy and stiff.

It's prolly an unsuitable comparison, (relatively) low energy x-rays  to nuclear-reactor level gamma rays. Even the kind of damage dealt is not the same (mutation/cancer risk long term vs death by aplastic anemia in a couple of weeks -which is what those engineers are facing-). Radiologist aprons are supposed to protect the wearer's more sensitive parts from intermitent x-ray bursts which aren't focused at them anyway. I don't think they'd be of much use in this setting.

As a bit of trivia: last year I had to wear one of those (which went  from throat to toes). I can vouch that it was really heavy and uncomfortable.

[Shinziril]

You can get gamma-ray emission from blocking charged particle radiation, but it has to be moving pretty fast in the first place.  See Bremsstrahlung.  Probably not a huge danger in this case.

Hard gamma radiation is a pain in the ass to block with anything humanly wearable, since it mostly just boils down to sticking mass in front of it without regards to material properties, and it takes a LOT of mass to do anything.  Lead is good because it's cheap and dense, but quite honestly anything that would seriously reduce the amounts of radiation wouldn't allow you to move.  It's kind of similar as to how there's no humanly wearable armor that protects against missiles, it just takes too much material to do anything. 

[Nikov]

The purpose of military radiological suits is largely to prevent inhaling or skin contamination of radioactive particles, and reduce uptake of radiation in the alpha/beta range. Protection from gamma radiation is a foxhole, trench or APC hull. Once out of the contaminated area, you scrub the suit off with soap and water, remove it, and take a shower for good measure.

[alway]

I can't help but think of the similarities to the horrible finale of Fallout 3 where despite wearing an anti-radiation suit and downing half a dozen anti-radiation pills you instantly die anyway...

But yeah, if we had stuff that easily and totally protected from ionizing radiation, we wouldn't make such a fuss about cosmic rays in matters of manned interplanetary travel.

Edit: Ah crap... It seems people are buying into that joke radiation poster.

Spoiler: Saw this on another forum, heh (click to show/hide)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42095558/

Despite expert assurances that nuclear radiation won’t reach the shores of America, demand for potassium iodide has swamped the stocks of all three manufacturers or suppliers approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration for use in the U.S.