i love it when scientists suggest something i suggested a decade ago hopefully my vodka and chocolate milkshake taps will be next on their invention list.
Shielding is not easily achieved. Space is a dangerous place. It's full of cosmic rays, or more exactly extremely fast protons or heavy nuclei. In interplanetary space you receive a radiation dose of 130 - 250 milli Sievert a year. In interstellar space the annual dose is 300 - 700 mSv. In the Van-Allen-Belt, dose is up to about 15000 mSv. The estimated exposition for a flight to Mars is 800 mSv. The recommended maximum lifetime dose is about 250 mSv. What can be done about this? Material shielding by water Spacecraft could be built with material shielding. For example, a water insulation of 5 meters would provide protection like earth's atmosphere at 4500 m altitude. [See pic #1] The upside of this solution is that the astronauts will need water anyway. The downside is that the shielding would weigh at least a 500 tons. Way too much for any mobile unit. Magnetic shielding - one coil Spacecraft could also be shielded by a magnetic field. [See attachment #2] With common cosmic particles having energies up to 2GeV, a magnetic field of 20 Tesla or about 600,000 times the strength of the earths' field would be necessary. John Marshall of University Chicago reports, that he once stuck his head into the 0.5 Tesla field of collider. He says, with each movement of his head he saw tiny flashes of light and eventually had an acidic taste in his mouth. We just don't know how our body reacts to magnet fields of this magnitude. Magnetic shielding - two coils To care for this, there could also be a second electromagnet coil. [pic #3] Yet the neutral zone would be small, and of course there is the weight argument again. Electrostatic shielding There was also talk about electrostatically charging up a spacecraft or a space station. [pic #4] Yet this solution seems improbable. Apart from practical problems to create a charge of 2 billion Volts, a positivly charged craft would attract electrons over a vast region. The incomming electrons would generate gamma radiation on impact, which is about as bad or even worse than cosmic particles. PS: How to display attached pics inline? Why doesn't <img src="http://www.wordforge.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=12295&stc=1&d=1177534371"> parse into an image?
Another possibility is to use diamond into which hydrogen has been diffused. Such shielding could be reasonably light while stopping both charged and uncharged particles, all without screwing magnetically with your head.
Nah, just use the (Patent Pending) Saint-brand CNP Shield!(tm)(r)(psp(cause I want one)) Projects a cone of quantum-level Chuck Norrises to individually roundhouse-kick each and every dangerous particle in your ship's path!
Oh, please... The CNP Shield is EASILY overcome with a coherent FTIG beam. The only POSSIBLE defense against Fred Thompson's Icy Glare when fired as a coherent beam is the HCDUHHD* capture field. *(Hillary Clinton's Dried Up HooHooDilly)
There is one thing -- one thing only -- that can best the CNP Shield, a coherent FTIG beam, AND the HCDUHHD field... a compressed GS* Pulse. *Gibbs-Slap
