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June 29, 2005
Switch all power to front deflector shields
The Cat: Why don't we raise the defensive shields?
Kryten: A superlative suggestion, sir. With just two minor flaws. One, we don't have any defensive shields. And two, we don't have any defensive shields. Now I realise that technically speaking that's only one flaw but I thought that it was such a big one that it was worth mentioning twice.
The Cat: Good point, well made.
Holoship, Red Dwarf, Series V
NASA has pulled an old idea out of mothballs, dusted it off and presented it as a rather funky solution to radiation past low-earth orbit. Force fields.
In essence, you need to stop or repel these things as they are very bad for people. The planet has various layers of atmosphere that does the same thing for us, and we tend to wrap our reactors in heavy shielding material, like concrete and lead (or duct tape, depending on funding). Of course, when you need to spend a significant dollar amount per pound of payload, lead and concrete is not an ideal solution for space travel.
Most of the dangerous radiation in space consists of electrically charged particles: high-speed electrons and protons from the Sun, and massive, positively charged atomic nuclei from distant supernovas.
So, the idea goes, why not have a like charge around the astronauts and deflect it all, after all, opposites attract, likes repel. These spheres would have a high charge, 100 mega-volts, which is perfect for all sorts of practical jokes. They do say "most of the dangerous radiation", and I wonder what plans are afoot for the 'other' radiation. And it's not without critics. All research is being done at NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts, which is variously thought of as 'Boffin Nirvana' or 'A Senseless Money Pit'.
All very preliminary and impractical. But more fun to think about than zombie dogs. Ah, progress.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at June 29, 2005 08:51 PM
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