ABSTRACT
The advance of space exploration has been fraught with inherent risk throughout its history. Radiation dose is traditionally measured and quantified as average energy deposition within a given volume of known mass, deemed “absorbed dose”. Radiation detectors can provide essential information regarding the environment experienced by astronauts, but such measurements serve to clarify only one aspect of a complex process. Passive dosimeters accumulate a record of incident radiation that can later be processed to estimate the dose integrated over the time of exposure. Optically stimulated luminescent dosimeters share the same fundamental mechanisms as thermoluminescent dosimeters for dose accumulation and readout but are instead stimulated by optical laser. Plastic nuclear track detectors are the primary means of passive dosimetry for high-linear energy transfer radiation. Estimating the equivalent dose received by individuals in mixed radiation fields generally requires a combination of dosimeters with varying response characteristics.
