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The Moon's Magnetic Umbrellas
eldavojohn writes "When it comes to space exploration, there are things that are good for humans (water) and things that are bad for humans (radiation). In order for exploration of the moon to occur, its lack of a global magnetic shield to block solar radiation must be addressed. Luckily, scientists have discovered that there are highly magnetized areas of the moon's crust that could shield settlements." From the article: "Current evidence suggests that impact-basin ejecta materials [material blasted out by huge asteroid or comet impacts] are the most likely sources of many or all of the magnetic fields ... These ejecta contain microscopic metallic iron particles that are the carriers of the magnetization."
can't we just hide underneath some rocks? or can radiation get through moon rock since it's made of cheese?
How the fuck can cheese possibly be magnetic!
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I understand there's a large magnetic anomoly in the Tycho crater...
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
So the question that remains to be answered is
Do asteroids hit the same spot twice??So does that mean that terraforming is out of the question? I mean, even if we could create and hold an atmosphere (impossible for lack of gravity), would the moon remain uninhabitable due to a weak magnetosphere?
Other things that are bad for humans in space:
...
Vaccuum
Lack of hospitable worlds within a light-lifetime of Earth
Space junk in LEO
Lack of food/flora/fauna
Lack of easy return trips
Metric/English conversions
Klingons
Frakking toasters
Pod bay doors
Random ion storms which give superhuman powers
Maniacal dictators who for some reason want to use their newest Deus Ex Machina on Earth
It's a good thing you can't spell ridiculous, or we would have to take you siriusly.
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That'd be much more interesting if the story played out like Mr. A.C. Clarke wrote it./>
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We might as well face it... settlements on planets is never going to happen. Couple of reasons:
1) The moon is too ugly and the gravity too light.
2) Mars is ugly too, but even beyond that, it won't be allowed because we won't want to screw up the natural environment for study.
The future of space settlements is space stations floating in space. We can have any environment we want (including green), we can simulate natural gravity via spinning, and we can engineer shielding. Settling other planets is romantic, but impractical, and arguably very few people would want to live on a dead rock anyway.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Let's build our moon colony in the areas where there are strange magnetic readings. And when those colonists disappear mysteriously, we can send in a crack commando team to investigate. This would lead to entertaining action, some mild humor, and perhaps even a little romance.
REdiculous? I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to rIdicule you for that one.
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No, no, no. It's REDiculous. As in the Reds or Commies. It's not just bad, it's Communist.
Please excuse my highly uninformed and profoundly speculative conjecture here.
But in regards to radiation shielding, could the recent advancements in metamaterial technology possibly offer a solution?
After all, there has been recent success with microwave radiation (albiet at a very limited and precise wavelength) - could meta-materials be concieved which block the other popular radation types?
What would be the major hurdles to overcome?
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Artificial magnetic shielding is surprisingly economical. Big weak fields do a fine job deflecting charged particles, and you can generate them with a superconducting cable around the rim of a crater. Polar craters (where the ice might be) are plenty cold enough for today's high temperature superconductors.
The article is great, because it does outline the major problem facing permanent settlement on the Moon: radiation. But there are some other necessities that need to be addressed, like reinforcing of the magnetic field during solar flares, the crater's proximity to other elements for the production of power and water, and the need for solar power.
While it's a great start, it doesn't answer all the questions, which leaves scientists and future lunar explorers with a great question: Do they build up a complex network of sites, or continue to try to find the ideal spot?
With increasing pressure from other countries to get to the Moon first, as well as additional programs to settle the moon as a research outpost, the pressure is on. So while this is a great find, and will augment any magnetic solution that mankind could come up with, it's only part of the puzzle. That being said, it is an important part of the puzzle.
While strong magnetic fields might be a benefit in the aforementioned radiation shield application, aren't there certain situations where such an environment might not be a benefit, like working with computers maybe, or being a human?
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Forgive the stupid question, but if all we need is a little magnetic field, wouldn't a few strategically placed Curiously Strong Magnets solve the problem?
That's no moon...
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there are things that are good for humans (water) and things that are bad for humans (radiation)
Being a fan of light and heat but not drowning, does that make me a weird human?
As the old saying goes: all things in moderation. Radiation's pretty useful, just as water is. Overwhelm my body with either though and things start to go wrong. In the history of humanity though, I'm guessing more people have died from too much water than too much radiation - if only due to the convenience of access to excess of one and not the other.
Couldn't we just get one of the guys in the engineering drpartment to extend the Earth's magnetic shield out around the moon? I'm quite certain tht I've heard that idea proposed before ...
Why Can't they just make a dome over the settlement made out of the same gold coated/embedded glass that is used on space suits? Doesn't it block radiation? Wouldn't the building probably made just like the ISS be able to block radiation? Do we really need astrounauts to procreate anyway?
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit!
Or can anyone else see a small dark oblong in the middle of the picture? Kind of like a monolith...
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
Those fields are obviously pollution left behind by some fool leaving his Cavorite sphere idling in park. Will someone please think of the Selenites?
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Wasn't the question of surviving solar radiation on the moon solved in the 60's. Those guys also figured out how to survive the Van Allen belt, so why don't we just ask them? I'm sure some of the Apollo engineers are still alive.
The best part of building near a crater is you are safer from future meteor strikes; it sort of follows the whole "lightening never strikes twice" principle. Speaking of which, I wonder how lightening rods work.....
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Magnetic umbrellas?
Listen, fellas.
Stop the rays
Or so they tell us:
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Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
...or does ejecta on the face bring up a completely different topic of conversation?
I think we might have found TMA-1!
:q! Oh crap, not again...
I'm all for a moon settlement. If we're going to have astronauts, last place I want them is here on Earth. A little over a month ago, an astronaut moved into my neighborhood and simultaneously all the leaves died and fell off our oak trees. Go eat your Tang upside-down in space where you belong.
Don't you know what happens when you mix a magnetic field and iron-nickle asteroids floating by? Haven't these scientists ever watched cartoons? Oh, it makes me so angry!
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big honkin space magnets.
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Why the hell do we keep looking for the whiz-bang expensive solution, when there is an easy and standard solution already available and working? I'll tell you why:
We are afraid to succeed.
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"Alexander the Great, Black Death in Europe in 1347, Neil Armstrong in 1969. And which timeline are you from?"
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
So get 'unspoiled'. Take some LSD and go watch the movie like millions of other people did when it was released. You'll be just amazed. Can't find any LSD? Ah, well, that was the 'other space program' that we lost since the 1960s. ...... zip, grind, splat"
Actually though, you're kind of lucky. The original 2001:A Space Odyssey was really long and boring. Its 'magic' depended upon its special effects and the degree that they were taken seriously at the time. Now, they would be really boring.
Still watching this film would allow to catch the occasional 'baby boomer' joke. Like: "Open the pod bay door, HAL" "Sorry, Dave" "Open the door, HAL" "No, Dave" "Control Alt Delete, HAL" "Sorry Daaaav
Does it help much that when flying you are inside an aluminum can?
Clearly this is a build up of magnetic radiation coming from the nuclear waste dump on the other side of the moon.
Nothing to worry about, it's all perfectly natural.
Once again, NASA ignores the possibility (perhaps probability is a better word?) that the magnetism is the result of electrical exchange between bodies in space.
In 2005, the mission to comet Tempel 1 called Deep Impact shot a copper ball into that comet. To my knowledge, NASA scientists still have not adequately explained the results of that experiment even though plasma cosmologist accurately predicted the results *before* the impact occurred. For a thorough summary of those results, visit http://www.thunderbolts.info/pdf/ElectricComet.pdf . There, you will learn that there is substantial evidence that cometary tails and comas are the result of electrical processes rather than any sort of sublimation of any icy snowball. When the copper ball got close, before impact, a small flash of lightning occurred. And in the video of the ball's approach, you can see white patches on the comet (charge equalization with the ball). Any critical eye in possession of a detailed photograph of a cometary tail can notice something peculiar about the dirty snowball theory. The zig-zaggy tail is lightning -- not a vapor trail. Vapor trails would not move in zig-zags. But more technically, we have yet to observe enough water on any comet that could create the tail and comas that we're seeing.
Why does this matter?
Well, it matters a lot! Because -- and this should be alarming to people -- the comets have craters just like asteroids and planets. If it is true as Thornhill and numerous other plasma cosmologists allege that these craters are the result of electrical machining, then it is possible that craters on the planets could also be the result of electrical charge transfers (aka lightning). And it shouldn't surprise anybody that lightning could leave magnetic traces of its activity. In fact, if it weren't for the big bang theory, then that might be our first guess.
Have you ever for a second stopped and wondered why all of these frickin impact craters are round!? Doesn't that seem like a bit too coincidental? Exactly how many impacts can you expect to occur at right-angles? If we're talking about lightning, however, it would be exactly the case that all of the craters would be round because the charge would travel the path of least resistance (a 90 degree angle connecting the two bodies).
Also, if we accept the plasma cosmologists' conclusions for the Deep Impact mission that comets glow because charge is being stripped from the comet, then first of all, this means that the Sun is emitting an electric field that is causing this charge separation (and that's a whole different story!). But just as importantly, it also implies that such similar charge movements and transfers can occur for planets. All of these things are fundamental concepts of plasma physics, and considering that 99.99% of the observable universe consists of matter in the plasma state, it might be wise to listen to those guys.
When the Space Shuttle Columbia went down some years ago, a rogue amateur astronomer captured an image of the Shuttle's plasma exhaust being struck by a bolt of lightning, which could very clearly be seen to travel from the upper atmosphere onto the exhaust plasma trail and in the direction of the Shuttle. This image coincided precisely with the Shuttle's malfunctioning and Shuttle parts have been observed to have electrical machining that one would expect from a lightning strike. However, NASA discounted this explanation on the basis that the lightning was too high in the atmosphere to exist (planets cannot transfer charge with outer space, in other words), and that instruments were unable to hear any lightning strike (even though it's known by plasma cosmologists that lightning in the upper atmosphere wouldn't make the same sounds it does in the lower atmosphere). It's also important to note that meteorologists still do not fully understand the origins of lightning, so it's rather curious that NASA could b
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http://www.artybees.co.nz/bizarre-book-pages/whatw eretheyon-spaceship-moon.htm
"It's time to take life by the cans." ~ Bender ("Bendin' in the Wind", ep. 3-13)
It might help more if you travelled in a lead can? Be harder to get into the air, and there's also the lead poisoning thing I guess...
Sorry I can't cite the source, but I remember reading years ago how Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) was found to have certain shielding properties against radiation. It may be bull, but then again it may not, maybe some sort of hybrid material integrating PVC could be a 'lightweight' and less toxic solution to the problem.
Ah, yet another item in my to-do internet research list. (sigh)
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I think there was a discussion involving the space elevator a few days back where people were talking about the amount of shielding needed to protect against the radiatio from the Van Allen belts. IIRC, they said that 3mm of aluminium is enough to protect from that particular radiation hazard. I'm curious how much more or less is required to protect from a solar flare, or how much the aluminium already present in a commercial aircraft (well below the Van Allen belts) protects you against any radiation you encounter in the atmosphere.
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