Quote:
Originally Posted by WarChild
I believe, although I don't have it right in front of me now, but I believe Van Allen himself later went on to say that people would be able to travel rabidly through the belt.
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Yep the point was that the cosmonauts or Russian propaganda machine cited the Van Allen Belts as the major barrier (not me). Whereas these days we know there are few places in the belt that are really dangerous. It's a matter of passing through at the right time and the right area to only suffer a minimum of radiation exposure.
Apollo program researchers have debated back and forth - did NASA really have the equipment at the time to know where and when to pass through the belts in order not to fry and I tend to think they winged it!