Solid state nuclear track detectors in hadrontherapy and radiation protection in space

The recent widespread of carbon-therapy for cancer treatment and the long duration manned exploration planned by NASA require the knowledge of nuclear data both for assessing the correct dose distribution in the target volume and surrounding healthy tissue (radiation therapy), and for a better knowledge of the mixed radiation field to which astronauts will be exposed (radiation protection in space). Nuclear fragmentation taking place in traversed material, even human body itself, is indeed responsible for a beam quality change whose biological effects have to be evaluated. Solid state nuclear track detectors (SSNTD) provide accurate measurements of fluence and fragmentation of heavy ions needed for hadrontherapy and space radiation-protection purposes.