The phantoms are back! Although the #Artemis I mission to the Moon and back was uncrewed, there were a number of payloads aboard to help us prepare astronauts for future flights on the Orion spacecraft. These payloads included the Matroshka AstroRad Radiation Experiment (MARE), which consisted of two manikins, or “phantoms,” manufactured from materials that mimic human bones, soft tissues, and organs of an adult female. The phantoms have a three-centimeter grid embedded throughout the torsos that enable scientists to map internal radiation doses to areas of the body that contain critical organs. One of the phantoms, Zohar, wore a new radiation protection vest called AstroRad. The other phantom, Helga, did not wear the vest, allowing research to evaluate the vest’s effectiveness to block space radiation during the lunar mission. Female forms were selected for this experiment because women typically have greater sensitivity to the effects of space radiation, but the AstroRad vest is d...