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NASA Working On Solar Storm Shield
Zothecula writes "The solar storms that cause the stunning aurora borealis and aurora australis (or northern and southern polar lights) also have the potential to knock out telecommunications equipment and navigational systems and cause blackouts of electrical grids. With the frequency of the sun's flares following an 11-year cycle of solar activity and the next solar maximum expected around 2013, scientists are bracing for an overdue, once-in-100 year event that could cause widespread power blackouts and cripple electricity grids around the world. It sounds like an insurmountable problem but a new NASA project called 'Solar Shield' is working to develop a forecasting system that can mitigate the impacts of such events and keep the electrons flowing."
Yeah, this seems to be more of a system to send an alert to the utility companies.
"At the tone, it will be 15 minutes until all your power transmission shit explodes."
I presume this will be to give them a chance to disconnect critical and expensive stuff? I mean, if you don't have protection gear on your system, is 18 - 48 hours enough to get anything of significance installed? Even if you have protective equipment, there is no way to be absolutely sure it will function this time.
What am I missing here?
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
It's a shield in the same way we're "shielded" from tsunamis and hurricanes by coordinated early-warning systems. That's essentially what they're describing, near as I can tell from the article.
Oh, and BTW, since when is a physical shield the epitome of high-tech? Don't you watch Star Trek?
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Canada, March 13, 1989. Sometimes solar flares do cause blackouts.
Yes a warning system, so you know you can disconnect the important stuff from those millions of miles of wires. You know so the transformers don't all go pop at the same time?