Force Field for Mars Mission: This Isn't Science Fiction

(warning: geeky content)

• "Diamagnetic Cavity Shields For Spacecraft?"
  Space.com (November 7, 2008)
  • "A spacecraft could be protected from radiation with a dipolelike magnetic field and plasma; it could surround a spacecraft like a 'mini magnetosphere.' Reseachers in the UK, Portugal and Sweden announced the work in this month's Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion...."
• "Force Field Might Shield Astronauts on Way to Mars"
  FOXNews (November 5, 2008)
  • "...British and Portuguese researchers may have solved one of the biggest problems facing interplanetary travel — how to get astronauts there and back without deadly solar radiation frying their DNA and setting off a cascade of cancers and related diseases...."
• "Mission to Mars: Key health hurdle can be overcome, say scientists"
  Yahoo! News (November 4, 2008)
  • "PARIS (AFP) – Scientists believe they have found a way of protecting astronauts from a dangerous source of space radiation, thus lifting a major doubt clouding the dream to send humans to Mars...."
• "To boldly go where no man has gone before - new 'force field' technology will protect astronauts on their journey to the planets"
  Science & Technology Facilities Council (November 4, 2008)
  • "Force field technology used to protect spaceships in science fiction programmes could soon become science fact, thanks to experiments by researchers at the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), the Universities of York and Strathclyde, and the IST Lisbon...."

Traveling to Mars is one thing. Being alive when you get there is something else.

One reason the Apollo missions succeeded was that they happened during a quiet period of solar weather. Radiation in deep space is generally a lot heavier than it was in the early seventies.

We're safe, under a planet-size magnetic shield and several miles of atmosphere. And people in low Earth orbit still have Earth's naturally-occurring force shield protecting them. Even so, sometimes they have to get behind heavy equipment, just to be on the safe side.

Keeping a crew safe on the way to Mars and back would be simple, if we had an easy way to move tons of shielding with them. We don't.

We've had the technology to make a huge magnetic shield for years. Just a few problems. For one thing, the force shield would be enormous: over a hundred kilometers across.

More to the point, it would take so much power that the batteries or generators would be too heavy: and the magnetic fields might hurt or kill the crew.

Good news: Research aimed at containing fusion reactions should make a small, non-lethal, magnetic shield a practical possibility. At least, some scientists in Britain and elsewhere think so.

Other posts, about "Mars, Mostly."