NASA Van Allen probes discover PARTICLE HURRICANES Space boffins having a poke around in the Van Allen Radiation Belts - two concentric rings encircling the Earth in which large numbers of high-energy charged particles are dashing around - have confirmed a theory about how the particles are accelerated to ultra-high energies. Since the Van Allen belts were first discovered, …
The viewers at home will be able to watch an accurate simulation of the spacecraft as it makes its journey!
I'm sure the model will be extrapolated on to show the most gruesome fates for the crew should the shielding fail. After hours of watching breathlessly we'll learn it all went well though and the pilots new arm allows him to give other crew members more down time.
There's a number of 'mini-magnetosphere' related spaceship projects out there, some for propulsion, some for particle deflection. As some of them are being considered as protection from solar flares, they should do an excellent job of protecting craft travelling through the van Allen belts. Also, y'know, "shields up" becomes a legitimate bit of spaceflight jargon, not just sci-fi.
The brute force approach would be to simply throw up a bunch of nice big electrodynamic tethers; should dissipate the particle clouds, given enough time. Course, that would likely spoil the Aurorae, and might have other side effects...
I was thinking much the same thing about magnetically shielded spacecraft. Beats making the bloody things out of metal thick enough to rival WWII battleships to shield against radiation and even induced radiation from particles striking the metal.
If an EM component that isn't a simple relatively static magnetic field can add to the protection, that makes the entire thing far more likely to be practical and less expensive in terms of mass.
Wzrd1,
Ah but there's an advantage to the battleship armour thickness spaceship walls. It gives us a perfect excuse to go for the 'Project Orion' approach to spaceflight. Then we can get pretty much anything we want up there, and deal with nuclear proliferation, by 'recycling' old warheads.
Caveat: Now I like development as much as the next man. And I hate Nimbyism. However, on this particular occasion, I really must protest about the idea of Project Orion being launched anywhere near my house. I get these terrible headaches you see, and the last thing I want is something making them worse...
I can't decide between a smiley face and a big explosion icon. But I think I'll go for the smiley face, because big explosions are fun. When they're not happening to you.
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