Star Trek “Ion Shield” Offers Solution for Mars-bound Space Crews

“It’s no accident that Star Trek featured this sort of technology, as it had advisers who work for NASA and it’s feasible. The shields seem to be some sort of invisible barrier, which energy bounces off, and that sort of deflector shield is exactly what we’re talking about.”

~ Dr Ruth Bamford, Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire

The Global Exploration Strategy, signed by 14 space agencies including those of Britain, China, France and the US, aims to get humans back on the moon an beyond, with an ultimate objective of sending humans on an eight-month trip to the red planet. However, for this to happen the looming question of how to fend off the solar wind has to be answered. Scientists are now making some progress with a shield that might work like the one Captian Kirk relied on to protect his crew from Klingon lasers, and such.

But for now the real foe is the solar wind. The stream of high-energy charged particles from the sun traveling faster than the speed of sound represents a real risk to astronauts. Studies have shown that the stream of particles may turn astronauts brains to “mush”, and can cause DNA mutations which can lead to cancer. But there may be an easy way to avoid all that. Researchers have created a model of the solar wind in a lab in Oxfordshire to study how to use magnetic shielding to protect astronauts.

"We now have actual measurements that show a 'hole' in the solar wind could be created in which a spacecraft could sit, affording some protection from 'ion storms', as they would call them on Star Trek," said Dr Ruth Bamford, a physicist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Chilton.

Bamford and her colleagues borrowed their ideas not just from Star Trek, but from our own planet protective wrapping when designing the "ion shield". Earth's magnetic field produces a shell called the magnetosphere, which deflects charged particles in the solar wind. "We wouldn't have life on Earth if we were fully exposed to the radiation coming from the sun," she explained. "It's our first layer of defense."

Bamford’s team simulated the solar wind in the lab using an intense beam of charged high-energy particles. They placed a powerful magnet in this beam to investigate how effective it was at deflecting the particles. According to Bamford, it works perfectly. The pinkish glow of the plasma beam curved around the magnet. Just as the team had predicted, the “ion shield” worked like a charm.

"It seems like quite a simple thing to do and it is, but what we are trying to do is put numbers on how effective this is," said Bamford. "I think a lot of people in space science didn't necessarily believe it could work as well as it did - and it worked superbly well."

The team has successfully demonstrated the idea, but now the real challenge is now to make a device energy-efficient enough to be powered in space. To bad we don’t have any real life Enterprise engineers around to show us how it’s done.

Posted by Rebecca Sato.

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Links:
http://www.mathaba.net/rss/?x=579680
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article1668525.ece

Comments

[Wade Zarosinski]

Easy. Use super conductors. Pump a charge through them and their magnetic field grows immensely.

Alright. NOW GET TO WORK, SCIENCE. I want to be vacationing on Io.

[Karl]

Instead of deflecting the charged particles why not channel them and use them to power the magentic field itself.

[Karl]

The particles do follow the magnetic path of the field (which is the whole idea)so it should be easy enough to channel. The particles would be collected by the field and then channeled to the poles and stored. Then it can be used to power or help power the magnet.