Shield for the Starship Enterprise: A Reality?

[ToSeek]

Shield for the Starship Enterprise: A Reality?

Now scientists at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire plan to mimic nature. They will build a miniature magnetosphere in a laboratory to see if a deflector shield can be used to protect humans living on space craft and in bases on the Moon or Mars.

In order to work, an artificial mini-magnetosphere on a space craft will need to utilise many cutting edge technologies, such as superconductors and the magnetic confinement techniques used in nuclear fusion.

Thus science is following science fiction once again. The writers of Star Trek realised that any space craft containing humans would need protection from the hazardous effects of cosmic radiation. They envisioned a 'deflector shield' spreading out from the Starship Enterprise that the radiation would bounce off. These experiments will help to establish whether this idea could one day become a practical reality.

[NEOWatcher]

The writers of Star Trek realised...

Is that why the shields were normally never on?

Come on people, these ideas come from need, and the imaginations will normally come up with the same stuff. ST writers only had the advantage that the idea didn't have to relate to something so were able to present it.

[CJSF]

They specifically refer to the deflector shield, which is different than the defensive shields. The deflector shield emanated from the dish-like area at the front of the main (engineering) section. I think it was sometimes refered to as a navagational deflector, too. It would be used to defelect particles and small objects out of the starship's path.

CJSF

[loglo]

Is that why the shields were normally never on?
..snip..

No... the deflector was the radiation shield and it was always on .... the other shields were the weapon shields.

[NEOWatcher]

No... the deflector was the radiation shield and it was always on .... the other shields were the weapon shields.

Ok; ok; enough already. My point was that the ST writers did not have some wonderful imagination of unknown concepts that would have only been known through the use of the stories.

Where do you think they got their ideas from?

Besides, I always thought it was deflector dish, and weapon shields. But; without the nitpick on the history of ST, I'm sure the original thinking was...Cool dish on the front of the ship, what can we make it do?

[Larry Jacks]

Ok; ok; enough already. My point was that the ST writers did not have some wonderful imagination of unknown concepts that would have only been known through the use of the stories.

Where do you think they got their ideas from?

Some of them have a pretty good understanding of physics. I think that even in the 1960s, people like Bussard knew that vehicles traveling at very high (relativistic) speeds would need some protection. Even a speck of dust can pack a punch if the velocity is high enough.

[Doodler]

I wonder if instead of generating the plasma needed, they could simply fly through the Van Allen belts and charge'em up that way?

The belts regenerate on their own by capturing particles from the Sun, and once the ship has it, it can maintain it while operating until it returns to Earth and orbits under the belts again.

[novaderrik]

are the defensive shields and deflector shield different from the structural integrity field?
and, if i remember correctly, pretty much any sort of a projectile could go right thru those "shields"..
i sometimes wonder if Star Trek is the right thing to model our future technologies on.

[Ronald Brak]

i sometimes wonder if Star Trek is the right thing to model our future technologies on.

If our technology was as reliable as Star Trek's then if you played x-box every day for a week you'd probably die. But on the bright side you can always exceed the absolute maximum tolerance or capacity of equipment without any reprecussions. And if someone blew out every transformer in your town's electrical grid it would take about three hours to fix. Doctors would be able to cure HIV but people with single stab wounds would almost always die after a period of time just long enough to leave a cryptic message. And the more advanced and powerful our guns become, the more likely you would be to survive being shot, again with no real reprecussions.

[eburacum45]

I'm happy to see some research is going on into these protective fields; the trouble is, they have to be very strong to deflect the most powerful cosmic rays. In which case the magnetic flux inside the spacecraft will also be high, affecting on-board electronic equipment.

So the ship will need another shield, inside the shield, to shield the ship from the shield. Something like a Faraday cage.

One compromise could be to ignore the most powerful cosmic rays; they are rare anyway. So the shield could be designed to only deflect low and medium energy rays; a kind of deadly cost-benefit analysis would be required.

[Nicolas]

This would consume "quite some energy", so I say a nuclear power source would be necessary.

[ASEI]

a kind of deadly cost-benefit analysis would be required.

Don't see why it's qualitatively different than any other cost benifit analysis. You could make your car completely safe for a 40 mph head on collision by making it a tank with good crash countermeasures (airbags, head straps, ect). It would just be uncomfortable to sit in and get ridiculously poor gas mileage. You could make anything "completely safe" by spending an infinite amount of time, money, and attention (well, not even then), but nobody can afford that kind of safety and get anything done. Historically people have taken very dangerous risks (Mayflower, caravaning across the Arabian desert, launching into space to begin with, ect) to make progress.

PS - using some sort of magnetic field to deflect charged particles is one of those "Duh" things that I've been a proponent of for some time. If leaving the magnetosphere is so traumatic that some contend the unfeasability of any human spaceflight beyond earth orbit (the fact that we landed on the moon a few times aside), there's nothing preventing us from generating our own magnetic fields. We've had control over electromagnetism for how many decades now? I thought I read some 70's era NASA paper about just such a radiation countermeasure for extended moon missions, but it doesn't seem like they remember it.

[ASEI]

And the more advanced and powerful our guns become, the more likely you would be to survive being shot, again with no real reprecussions.

Unless you're wearing a red shirt. Something about the absorbance of phaser energy at that wavelength, I guess.

[ASEI]

PS - why always superconductors? I know they don't have resistance to current, which makes them nice for magnet applications, but they also have to be cooled to cryogenic temperatures, which makes things difficult for a spacecraft generating the power to run the life support, engines, ect trying to dump all that heat into space.

Why not just use plain old fashioned conducting coils? KISS principle.

[Larry Jacks]

Superconductors have no electrical resistance, so you can run high currents through them without generating heat. Getting rid of excess heat is challenging in space because radiators aren't as effective as they are in an atmosphere. On the whole, space is big, dark, and cold. Achieving very low temperatures shouldn't be all that difficult. Superconductor technology is gradually improving. The very first superconductors had to be chilled almost to absolute zero. You can operate them much warmer today. The hope is to ond day get them to operate at the temperature of readily available liquid nitrogen. At that temperature, you could operate them in space without too much difficulty.

[3rdvogon]

Going back to the original post on this thread. I think the only SciFi story I have seen on screen which used a technology more closely approximating to what is being described was not "Star Trek" but "Space Odessey - Voyage to the Planets" - In that story the spacecraft seemed to be fitted with some sort superconductive magnetic modules at either end of the crew accommodation section that were intended to draw charged particles around the vital areas. Of course they failed to suggest how this system was supposed to cope by providing protection from neutrons, X Rays and Gamma Rays. Mind you one of the crew did die a slow death from leukaemia.

[mugaliens]

Ok; ok; enough already. My point was that the ST writers did not have some wonderful imagination of unknown concepts that would have only been known through the use of the stories.

Where do you think they got their ideas from?

Probably from particle physics experiements conducted decades earlier, along with the knowledge obtained from high-altitude instrumented balloons launched throughout the 50's prior to the initiation of Star Trek.

Just a guess...

[Van Rijn]

I thought I read some 70's era NASA paper about just such a radiation countermeasure for extended moon missions, but it doesn't seem like they remember it.

Yes, I know there have been ideas about electromagnetic and electrostatic shields since the '70s (and probably earlier). Among other places, it was discussed in relation to O'Neill colony designs as one way to reduce mass for shielding. Building and testing actual designs is another thing, of course. It really isn't much of an issue until you start talking about long term stays, so there hasn't been that much work done on it, much like the limited work on high closure life support.

[ASEI]

Isn't there some sort of carrying capacity limit for superconductors that prevents you from making arbitrarily powerful magnets with them?

[Van Rijn]

Probably from particle physics experiements conducted decades earlier, along with the knowledge obtained from high-altitude instrumented balloons launched throughout the 50's prior to the initiation of Star Trek.

Just a guess...

In m recollection from The Making of Star Trek, one of the reasons the deflector was suggested was due to the fact that the spacecraft would often be moving at high real velocity, so a small impact would be devestating - it started as a "meteor shield." But, don't forget that the idea of a force field was far from new in science fiction, on screen and off. Forbidden Planet had them, after all.

[Van Rijn]

Isn't there some sort of carrying capacity limit for superconductors that prevents you from making arbitrarily powerful magnets with them?

The critical current, yes. Too much current and it stops being a superconductor. But, some superconductors can handle a lot of current (the high temperature superconductors, not as much). There have been proposals for thin national superconductor power lines that could handle a very large fraction of the U.S.'s power transmission needs. The cost, so far, makes it impractical.

[mugaliens]

Yes, I know there have been ideas about electromagnetic and electrostatic shields since the '70s (and probably earlier). Among other places, it was discussed in relation to O'Neill colony designs as one way to reduce mass for shielding. Building and testing actual designs is another thing, of course. It really isn't much of an issue until you start talking about long term stays, so there hasn't been that much work done on it, much like the limited work on high closure life support.

Ah, yes - good old Gerrard K.! Although he also postulated lunar mass drivers and using several feet of rock to shield the space colonies.

[Damburger]

Why does this have to be inspired by Trek? Why can't it be inspired by Earths natural radiation shielding? I think ST gets a bit too much credit for 'inventing' things sometimes.

In any case, it sounds like a good idea. Sure, it won't stop gamma rays and neutrons, but I was under the impression the biggest threat to humans on interplanetary voyages would be solar protons.

[publiusr]

It and caves are good defenses. That and large tanks of water above a caver entrance, and the shield system atop that.

[mr obvious]

Why does this have to be inspired by Trek? Why can't it be inspired by Earths natural radiation shielding? I think ST gets a bit too much credit for 'inventing' things sometimes.

In any case, it sounds like a good idea. Sure, it won't stop gamma rays and neutrons, but I was under the impression the biggest threat to humans on interplanetary voyages would be solar protons.

I think the use of Trek was to simply help people visualize the 'bubble-like' shield around the space vessel that protects it. It's much easier than saying "we're going to project a magnetic field that will deflect some types of radiation." But I agree, the quote in the OP seems to imply that the scientists didn't consider radiation for the Apollo (and earlier) missions at all and were told by Star Trek writers about it.

[pottsynz]

Isn't this kind of idea usually muted by very high energy requirements?

Much cheaper/easier to build water tanks (at least on a spacecraft).

[Damburger]

Would it be possible to use the deflection to generate thrust at all? I realise it would be tiny, but it would be continuous.

[mr obvious]

Deflection against what? When we're talking about particles, there's something there to deflect. If space were empty, there'd be no net transfer of momentum. If you wish to use the dust itself, you need to either have an asymmetric amount of dust hitting the deflectors, or you need to have some sort of ratchet mechanism. It's analogous to the idea that in very small scales, you can drive things around using Brownian motion, and there similar limitations apply.

[Noclevername]

The idea's similar to Zubrin's Magnetic Sail (propelled by solar wind particles) or the Mini-Magnetospheric Plasma Propulsion (ditto), a plasma sphere(oid) around a spacecraft. If I knew how to link I'd give you their Wikipedia pages.

[Damburger]

Deflection against what? When we're talking about particles, there's something there to deflect. If space were empty, there'd be no net transfer of momentum. If you wish to use the dust itself, you need to either have an asymmetric amount of dust hitting the deflectors, or you need to have some sort of ratchet mechanism. It's analogous to the idea that in very small scales, you can drive things around using Brownian motion, and there similar limitations apply.

I'm not sure what you mean.

The charged particles from the sun head towards the ship. The magnetic field is used to deflect most of them in a specific direction, would that not generate a small amount of thrust?