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Scientists Work To Produce 'Star Trek' Deflector Shields
cold fjord writes "This might be useful. From CNN: 'Recent evidence from NASA's Curiosity rover mission to the Red Planet has revealed that astronauts on the round-trip would be exposed to high levels of radiation from cosmic rays and high-energy particles from the sun ... this would clearly be bad for your health — and it is proving difficult to find a solution. ... [S]hielding to completely block the radiation danger would have to be "meters thick" and too heavy to be used aboard a spacecraft. In contrast, ... science fiction fans have once again got used to the ease with which Captain Kirk gives the order for "shields up" and the crew of the Enterprise being protected instantly from the hostility of space. Perhaps though, a real Star Trek shield may no longer be science fiction — scientists at the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) certainly think so. They have been testing a lightweight system to protect astronauts and spacecraft components from harmful radiation and working with colleagues in America to design a concept spaceship called Discovery that could take astronauts to the Moon or Mars. "Star Trek has great ideas — they just don't have to build it," said Ruth Bamford, lead researcher for the deflector shield project at RAL. ... The RAL plan is to create an environment around the spacecraft that mimics the Earth's magnetic field and recreates the protection we enjoy on the ground — they call it a mini magnetosphere." Related: 'Deflector Shields' protect the Lunar Surface.'"
Don't forget to be able to boost the shields with auxiliary, emergency and also war drive power... those are always used. Also extendable to protect other ships and maybe a functionality to raise the shields after a shot has been detected even if the "diplomatic" captain doesn't want to raise... since he is surely not going to die (maybe assimilated but no death)
Why isn't it Star Wars shields?
Amazing picture at the end of the article, be sure to not miss it.
Now if only they could do something about micrometeorites. Sadly I don't think this technology will help there. Still, it is a great idea.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Aren't space shuttles and (maybe) capsules (from, say, Apollo program) alredy shielded from cosmic rays and radiation somewhat? It's not like engineers and physicists didn't know about them before the Mercury program even was started.
Does it have anything to do with the length of the flight to Mars or the martian thin atmosphere not being able to filter them out?
deflector shields (which was emitted by the deflector dish) which were low powered and meant to deflect small particles and radiation, and defensive shields which were to protect against weapons and were emitted by various shield emitters on the hull. The summary really badly conflates the two.
When in doubt, copy nature.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
the reason physical shielding has to be so thick and dense is the particles are so small and flying so fast that they run through normal matter like it's not hardly even there. (besides the occasional hitting a bit of your dna and knocking the atoms around like a clean break on a pool table) Magnetic deflection would just reroute the HEPs around the capsule. Wouldn't require much weight, but may be a bit power hungry.
I don't know enough about magnetics though... I thought that it only takes significant energy to establish a strong magnetic field, and that unless it's interacting with (pulling/pushing) something, the "maintenance cost" is rather low? (and that you can recover a lot of that energy when turning off the magnet)
I suppose the problem then becomes how to keep the magnetic effects out of the inside of the capsule? Is that even possible?
Several recent space movies have played it like normal space exposure is no big deal unless there's an event like a solar flare that belches HEPs in their direction. Then all the dramatic klaxons go off and theyÂscramble to some purpose-built chamber that shields them until the storm is over. Don't we normally get hours of warnings on big CMEs? I think they're just rushing for the drama effect. Probably more of a "Hmm big CME just went off. Everybody meet up in the Round Room at 1800, pack a lunch, we'll be in there for at least five hours". Maybe something like that would be more practical, if possible. That would allow setting up a stronger magnetic field in a small area, relatively free of electronics and other metals normally required in a space ship.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Actually recreating the earths magnetosphere seemed so obvious, that the fact that they weren't doing this so far gave me the impression that there was something blocking this or nearly impossible.
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They have been testing a lightweight system to protect astronauts and spacecraft components from harmful radiation and working with colleagues in America to design a concept spaceship called Discovery that could take astronauts to the Moon or Mars.
Shouldn't a ship called Discovery take them to Europa? (Or Iapetus?)
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Why not spend that time trying to produce a replicator?
Or am I to expect a "Replicating food is killing farmers, and it's illegal!" response?
This reminds me of M2P2 that was all the rage on this site a decade or so ago.
Looks like the Dr. Winglee kept up some research, but their page was last updated in 2011.
But, some pretty pictures, movies, and results from actual experiments.
http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/space/M2P2/
If you've never heard of this, the basics are to create a magnetic sail by trapping plasma in a magnetic field around a spacecraft.
Solar wind particles push against the plasma, which is able to expand the range of the magnetic field, and provide force to push the craft.
This is somewhat similar to the concept of solar sails, except the plasma expands outward (increasing surface area exposed to the wind) as the density of the wind decreases. This provides more force than a solar sail the further you are from the sun.
Another benefit was the plasma and magnetic field are deflecting solar particles, so it can shield the occupants, much as this article describes.
I always get the shakes before a drop.
Build the spacecraft in space, using material from meteors or the moon. In fact just hollow out the meteor and move in.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The Apollo missions had deep space radiation exposure of around 7-10 days. Their radiation solutions (which mostly amounted to not launching during a solar flare) aren't going to extend to journeys which last much longer than that.
Well, sorta. If you do enough technobabble and you're willing to count close enough as a hit, then getting it right isn't that hard.
Point in case, in ST's case the Navigational Deflector (emitted by the deflector dish) was actually supposed to protect against space debris, micro-meteorites, etc. (Still a good idea, mind you, because when you're moving even close enough to the speed of light, a single grain of sand packs more energy than a broadside from a 20'th century battleship.)
Dealing with particles via magnetic field was actually the job of the Bussard Collectors (you know, those red glowing things at the front of the nacelles), a.k.a., ramscoops. Which actually didn't deflect it, but collected all that mostly hydrogen in the ship's path.
So, yeah, if you make a complete hash of which did what, and how, and still call it a ST deflector shield, yeah, you can count it as a hit.
But then by the same lax standard I can claim that Jesus endorsed binary code. Matthew 5:37: "But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." :p
(And yes, I'm a huge ST and SW nerd. I know, I know, I'll go not get laid now.;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The Curiostiy RAD experiement Principal Investigation gave a talk about Martian radiation 6/26 in Denver.
- 90% of the enroute radiation was from cosmic rays, the rest from solar flares. However a large solar storm could exceed cosmic ray levels.
- The eight month trip resulted in over 300 milliseverts of radiation, about one third of the recommend lifetime human dose.
- The thin Martian atmosphere greatly attenuates the surface radiation. But its still much higher than Earth.
- Hydrogen rich materials like water or certain plastics are useful barriers against cosmic rays. The ISS current has plastic shielded sleeping areas (to wait out solar storms too). It has been suggested to store fresh and waste water in the walls where the astronauts live and work.
How much energy will it take to run this thing? If the ship is using something like an Ion engine that already demands tons of power, this could be a problem.
"That's either incredibly asinine or the most brilliant troll I've ever read. Not sure which." -Anonymous Coward
Err, no. Both kinds were called deflector shields, in the canon. See: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Deflector_shield
The lower level one emitted by the navigationa deflector (a.k.a., deflector dish) dish was nothing else than a lower intensity force field, but still a deflector shield. (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Navigational_deflector)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Magnetic field deflects ionized particles, film at 11.
As mentioned elsewhere, the Moon missions were performed through a combination of limited exposure during a week or so trip outside the magnetosphere, combined with sheer luck that there was no significant coronal event during the trip.
Personally, I've always liked the RAL plan.
Well, duh, they'll just run an electroplasma manifold between it and the warp core ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
My college professor in plasma sciences told us - 13 years ago - that he invented and patented the deflector shields, using this method. He was working under an Air Force contract, and they immediately classified his patent.
I suspect that is more likely the reason it wasn't being done (publicly) previously. I've assumed every Air Force satellite has had this for a decade.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Scotty is dead :(
....scientists at the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) certainly think so. They have been testing a lightweight system to protect astronauts and spacecraft components from harmful radiation and working with colleagues in America to design a concept spaceship called Discovery that could take astronauts to the Moon or Mars.....
and it will be ready for production use in less than a year. (sarcasm)
Hey, wait. Didn't we already have a craft called "Discovery?"
They really are nerdin' it out. :)
Active shielding (as opposed to passive shielding that uses more mass of materials) is not a new idea [1]. The Rutherford Appleton Group every other year or so contacts NASA saying, look what we can do. Annoyingly, they do the contacting of NASA through the State department occasionally... NASA looks at their design, says "Uh huh, have you done a tech. demo yet?"
RAL says, "Yes, here are the results."
NASA says, "Yes, but this is for 10 MeV electrons. Which are not really part of the space radiation problem. Where are the higher energy proton and heavy ion results?"
RAL says, "..."
Space radiation protection is fundamentally different from terrestrial radiation protection. Space radiation is much higher energy and consists mainly of protons (but also heavy ions are important due to the Z^2 effect of radiation dose). And it is omnipresent - you cannot get away from space radiation - it is everywhere.
See, the problem with the unconfined magnetic field work is that the size and mass of the equipment to make a magnetic dipole against cosmic rays is prohibitive. The most recent analysis that I know of is by Paluzek [2] and needs a million kg in equipment with a diameter of 100 meters...
A nice review of the science and engineering aspects of active shielding can be found in Townsend (2005) [1].
[1] Townsend, L.W., "Critical analysis of active shielding methods for space radiation protection," Aerospace Conference, 2005 IEEE , vol., no., pp.724,730, 5-12 March 2005, doi: 10.1109/AERO.2005.1559364
[2] M. A. Paluszek, “Magnetic Radiation Shielding forPermanent Space Habitats,” in The Industrialization of Space: Proceedings of the Twenty-third Annual Meeting, American Astronautical Society,36 Part 1, 545-574, 1978.
... big-ass magnetic fields around a spaceship, could the same magnetic fields be used for propulsion (by interacting with the magnetic field of the sun or another nearby celestial body, or with the solar wind)? Would be nice to move around without having to carry reaction mass ...
Sure you can make a very strong magnetic field with superconducting coils, and it takes nearly no power to maintain. However... there are reasons why you cant take electronics or coins in your pockets to the MRI room... I can see that be a significant constraint to a space project. You can work with a weaker magnetic field, but i seriously doubt that it will be of any use for radiation protection, the H field needs to be huge for there to be enough distance to deflect high energy particles. Only way i see it even theoretically working is to first shield the living and working space of craft with surrounding layer of semiconductor - blocks the magnetic field completely and then to put your magnets around the craft. This will create huge problems with heat managment - and everything else.
I thought a thin layer of matter was pretty good at stopping ionized particles such as alpha and beta rays, while you needed a thick slab of matter to stop gamma rays. An electromagnetic deflector will not interact with gamma rays. I'm getting an impression here that a deflector is only useful for cases where there's a cheap alternative.
It could probably deflect pretty powerful ionized particles though, because you can mount it at a long distance from your spacecraft so that a little bit of deflection is enough.
but but ... if it "pushes-back" on the solarwinds, then it could also be used as solarsail!
j0king, i knew that. mars? let's go!
You forgot about the "containment field" technology used in the medical bay, cell "doors", the shuttle bay doors, fire suppression systems, main corridors and Jefferies tubes for sealing off sections from vacuum, damage or intruders. Those are clearly smaller scale applications of the same technology.
Hell, for that matter, maybe it's 5, since I seem to recall that the holodeck uses the same sort of technology to give the hologram projections surfaces for the participants to interact with.
Most moon hoax types forget one thing. These guys who rode several million gallons of lox and lit the sucker, they were thrill seekers. They lived for the rush of speed. These are the sorts of guys who would buy a corvette and see how fast it really can go. They were stone cold crazy. They are the sorts of guys today that would do a base jump just because they can. You meet them and they seem seriously cool and collected. But they loved the speed.
There was an amazing amount of luck and skill involved here. Several hundred people have died getting us to the moon. Then dinks come along and say 'you didnt do it'.
You do not need much to protect us from our magnetosphere and what is collecting in it (a couple of inches of metal will do). It is long term that it does not work well. Honestly I get tired of debunking them. If you take them point by point you usually end up at one thing. They 'hate' the US gov for some reason and a conspiracy theory is something good to latch onto. I like to use this quote to sum them up " If a guy's close to you, you can't slight 'im. You can't slight that guy. A real grievance can be resolved; differences can be resolved. But an imaginary hurt, a slight - that motherfucker gonna hate you 'til the day he dies. " from the movie hoffa.
"I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that."
Basically, "we think it would be cool to fly in outer space, and Star Trek thought of this idea, so give us 10M GBP and we'll dick around with some stuff for a few years, culminating in another riveting 6 point slide deck where we announce it can't be done."
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Very bad idea, the shields won't go up whenever tension needs to be created. Shouldn't be too many on a boring trip to Mars, but still, can we afford to risk it?
Star Trek has little to do with this. The theory has been researched in the past because we hoped we could use it for propulsion. At least it may find some use as shielding this way.
Why? Are you stuck on the other side of the fence from Tijuana?
After installing the Star Trek deflector belt, I have become interested in hygiene, interesting conversation and moving out of my moms basement.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In their mini "Space Odyssey", the astronauts had magnetosphere generators built in to their suits to protect them while they were planetside on Venus, Mars and on Jupiter's moon Io; there was also one built in to the bell of their spacecraft to protect them during the close solar flyby.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
When you tell us it will never work, be sure to start the sentence with "actually" you girlfriend-less neckbeard fuckbag.
Ok, that was a part that I was missing. The high energy protons. Then again, I'd distinguish the solar ones from the rest and I don't know the ratio.The ratio in terms of the the amount of damage done. The hardest radiation may come from everywhere but that doesn't mean it does most damage in absolute terms.
I'm not thinking here about getting rid of radiation, just reducing it with a factor 10. How much of the problem comes from the sun? You can protect yourself from the sun because you know the exact direction. To make a silly suggestion, if all the sleeping compartments are aligned in a long corridor with a diameter of 70cm, you can reduce the radiation load from the sun with a third (8 hours sleeping time) with a single slab of 70cm diameter. You can do similar things with computer working areas. If you put some distance between you and the slab the spread of the secondary radiation reduces its effect quickly. With a hypothetic magnetic deflection mechanism you could also be successful as long as the thing is exactly aligned between you and the sun, at whatever distance. Could be miles.
When the bulk of the radiation comes from everywhere then I think it should become pretty hard to protect yourself at all. There would still be strategies though, like spending most of the time in the relatively better protected center of a roundish ship. It also becomes harder to come up with an electromagnetic deflection strategy. A little bit of deflection won't work anymore , and the particles have more energy.
I'm glad that this submission amuses all you trekkies. Of course it's nothing but total crap, but who cares as long as it gets eyeballs on the ads, right? The article consists of a statement of the problem (radiation is bad for people in space), some spastic hand-waving informing us that a solution to the problem will require us to "utilise many cutting edge technologies, such as superconductors and the magnetic confinement techniques used in nuclear fusion", and then employs a thought-terminating cliché: look, Star Trek!
My favorite part is the series of Powerpoint slides under the heading "How it works". This is the kind of crap people email you when you missed a meeting. You can't tell squat from the slides, they don't even mention radiation or high velocity particles, they talk about "plasma" and show colored stuff that is (I must suppose) bumping into other colored stuff. The resolution of the slides is too poor to read a lot of the writing, though I can make out a tiny Enterprise on one of them. (Is the whole thing a joke? Am I the victim of a whoosh?) But hell, you've seen the slides, they must have made sense to everyone at the meeting, so who's going to admit that they appear to be gibberish. Besides, now you can tell everyone you meet that "we have a Star Trek shield and our competitors don't!". You could even post it to Slashdot.
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
This is hardly a new concept. I remember reading an article (I think from Popular Science) in the mid 60's (about the time of STOS) about building a "shield" based on superconducting magnets to protect spacecraft passing through the Van Allen belts. Hopefully something can be found that works as it would be too risky to explore the outer planets (or beyond) without it.
The Apollo missions had deep space radiation exposure of around 7-10 days. Their radiation solutions (which mostly amounted to not launching during a solar flare) aren't going to extend to journeys which last much longer than that.
except you can't predict flares
except you can't predict flares
You can to some degree (for example, they tend to correlate with current sunspot number) and it takes some time for them to get to Earth. Even an unexpected event yield a couple of days warning. It might not be enough time for an Apollo mission, but it sure isn't enough time for a deep space mission which has weeks before the crew can reach any other sort of shelter.