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Deflector shields could help protect astronauts against space radiation

Posted Apr 19, 2007 at 05:09AM by Karl B. Listed in: Space Exploration Tags: Star Trek, Seattle, UK, magnetic field
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Deflector shileds - Image 1


In the future, when man finally dares to move further and further into the outer reaches of space, deflector shields will help protect astronauts against space radiation. Yeah, the whole "deflector shields" thing sounds like something straight out of "Star Trek", but if current experiments pay off, it could become a reality.

According to the New Scientist, a group at the University of Washington in Seattle has just completed a round of experiments investigating one possible approach: using a bubble of charged particles, or plasma, as a deflector shield. A second team, led by Ruth Bamford of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK, has also begun deflector shield experiments. Bamford's team also hopes to eventually fly a test satellite surrounded by a cloud of plasma in space.

The Bamford team's research is built on the fact that plasma clouds have strong magnetic and electric fields that can deflect charged particles. The team plans to use a simple magnetic field generator to trap a cloud of plasma and test its particle-deflecting abilities. The real test of their research, though, will come when they attract funding for a demo mission that uses wires around a spacecraft to generate a magnetic field that can contain a plasma cloud.

"Hopefully we'll be able to fly a test mission in the next, say, 10 to 15 years," said team member Robert Bingham of Rutherford Appleton Lab.

[Via New Scientist] Permalink  |   Email this  |   Linking Blogs   |   Digg It!

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