CARE: Cancer And Radiation Education

Cancer is a disease that affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Currently, there is no efficient cure, and even alleviating its effects has proven difficult. Another pressing issue is that there is very little in the way of mainstream education regarding cancer. The average American citizen would have difficulty recognizing symptoms of cancer in themselves or others, increasing the amount of time it would take for them to receive treatment and decreasing their odds of survival significantly. Furthermore, cancer is an obstacle to space travel; high radiation is a significant risk for prolonged expeditions. Just six months in space will put an astronaut at a high risk of radiation-based injury, even if they don’t develop cancer. Our goal is to create a streamlined simulation that the general public can use and learn from. Additionally, we wish to learn more about radiation shields for use in space, keeping astronauts safe and healthy while in orbit. To achieve our goal, we will create an application for mobile devices that simulates a radiation-heavy environment which will be used to test various configurations of radiation barriers, the effectiveness of which will be based on the amount of time a human might survive while inside of the barrier and what radiation-based injuries they would get during their stay.