Scientists Work To Produce 'Star Trek' Deflector Shields 193
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.'"
Err, no. Both were deflector shields (Score:4, Interesting)
Err, no. Both kinds were called deflector shields, in the canon. See: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Deflector_shield [memory-alpha.org]
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 [memory-alpha.org])
A deflector to stop what? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Micrometeorites (Score:4, Interesting)
And you realize that Voyager 1 and 2 are frigging miracles that they are still alive after making it through the Oort Cloud and the trashbin that is our interplanetary space.
The Oort cloud is thought to extend out nearly a light year from the sun. Voyager 1 & 2 have most definitely not passed through it. But it's not like it's some super dense Star Wars style asteroid belt. You could fly a planet through it and not hit anything substantial.
Re:Pardon my ignorance (Score:5, Interesting)
No, they're not. The engineers and physicists knew all about cosmic radiation but there was nothing they could do about it. The shuttle does well enough since it stays within Earth's magnetosphere.
Apollo did leave the magnetosphere for part of it's mission and the Astronauts were exposed to radiation. They reported that they could see flashes of light believed to be caused by cosmic rays interacting with the fluid in their eyes. Had the sun flared at the wrong time, the crew would have been killed. Given the many risks of the Apollo mission, that was just one more and hardly the largest.
However, a mission to Mars with the crew in space for much longer can't take that approach.
Re:Micrometeorites (Score:4, Interesting)
The velocity of the craft does matter, and I will explain why.
If the velocity of the craft is much greater than the particles (think of dust floating in the air), then the craft will indeed sweep out all the particles in its line of motion.
However, the the velocity of the craft is much less that the particles (think cosmic rays in interplanetary space), then there will be the same number of collisions per unit time during the trip. A five hundred day trip will have ten times the number of collisions as a fifty day trip. Consequently, the faster your craft travels, the fewer particles you encounter during your journey.
Re:Well, sorta (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
They were around several years before Star Trek picked up on them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard_ramjet [wikipedia.org]
For a fairly long time, in the gap between TOS and TNG, when the books were adding to and fleshing out the universe, there was the idea that the vast majority of interstellar hydrogen is antimatter (discovered by Voyager 6 or something like that, when it transmitted back what it found and was promptly annihilated). That was the key thing that allows for travel without having to carry around a ton of reaction mass. Then add dilithium crystals, which were discovered to have a very powerful resonance effect near a matter-antimatter reaction. The discovery was an lab-bench accident, similar to the discovery of X-Rays. Of course, this is back when first contact was between Earth and Alpha Centari, and the Alpha Centariuns (who look like humans, only a bit more stocky and a second opposable thumb instead of a pinky) worked with Earthlings together to discover warp theory. TNG and later canon continuity wiped out most of that, but I haven't seen anything that directly contradicted the "interstellar hydrogen is mostly antimatter" idea.