Health and Radiation

mars-sim simulates realistic scenarios in which settler will cope with accidents of all kinds, illnesses, injuries and even death. Each settler has 4 critical health attributes reflecting the person’s current physical conditions: Hunger, Fatigue, Stress and Performance level.

A person’s overall health status may be reported as being well or being sick (such as Suffocating, Recovering from Anxiety Attack/Flu/Pulled Muscle, and Death, etc..)

In version 3.1.0, a radiation exposure modeling based on NASA’s studies has been partially implemented to make it realistic. There are 3 possible type of radiation events :

1. Baseline
2. Galactic Cosmic Radiation (GCR)
3. Solar Energetic Event (SEP)

Each with different level of radiation with SEP the highest level of exposure. The 3 body regions where the exposure are to be tracked :

1. Blood Forming Organ (BFO)
2. Ocular
3. Ski

In our modeling, there are 3 intervals (or counters) for the exposure :

1. 30 days
2. Annual
3. Career

In case of BFO, the max limits are set to be 250 mSV for 30 days, 500 mSV for Annual and 1000 mSV for Career.

As a side note here, the Mars rover Curiosity received an average dose of 300 milli-sieverts (mSv) over the 180-day journey.

Note: 300 mSv is equivalent to 24 CAT scans, or more than 15x the annual radiation limit for a worker in a nuclear power plant.

One must be reminded that in the forseeable future, Mars is a by-and-large dangerous and unforgiving world.

Survival hinges upon how well each settler responds to situations and how well they pull together as a team.

Equipment can malfunction and building break down and require maintenance. There are times when one has to go out on a rescue mission to tow a stranded vehicle back to the base.