Engineering: Shields up for future space missions

 

UK scientists are set to build an experimental magnetic shield that would protect space explorers in their journeys between the planets.

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The novel approach isn't unlike the protective shield available to the Enterprise crew in the Star Trek series.
 
Space agencies in the United States, Europe, China, Japan and India have announced their intention to resume human exploration of the Solar System in the last year.
 
However, travel beyond the immediate vicinity of the Earth carries significant risks for astronauts, not least of which is the exposure to sometimes high levels of radiation.
 
Cosmic rays and radiation from the Sun itself can cause acute radiation sickness in astronauts and even death.
 
Between 1968 and 1973, the Apollo astronauts going to the Moon were only in space for about 10 days at a time and were lucky not to have been in space during a major eruption on the Sun that would have flooded their spacecraft with deadly radiation.
 
On the International Space Station, there is a special thick-walled room to which the astronauts have had to retreat during times of increased solar radiation.
 
But on longer missions, the astronauts cannot live within shielded rooms, since such shielding would add significantly to the mass of the spacecraft, making them much more expensive and difficult to launch.
 
It is also now known that the 'drip-drip' of even lower levels of radiation can be as dangerous as acute bursts from the Sun.

Natural forms of protection

On the surface of the Earth we are protected from radiation by the thick layers of the atmosphere.
 
And the terrestrial magnetic field extends far into space, acting as a natural force field to further protect our planet and deflect the worst of the energetic particles from the Sun by creating a 'plasma barrier'.
 
Now scientists at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire plan to mimic nature.
 
They will build a miniature magnetosphere in a laboratory to see if a deflector shield can be used to protect humans living on spacecraft and in bases on the Moon or Mars.
 
In order to work, an artificial mini-magnetosphere on a spacecraft will need to utilise many cutting-edge technologies, such as superconductors and the magnetic confinement techniques used in nuclear fusion.
 
Therefore, science is following science fiction once again: the writers of Star Trek realised that any spacecraft containing humans would need protection from the hazardous effects of cosmic radiation.
 
They envisioned a 'deflector shield' spreading out from the Enterprise that the radiation would bounce off.
 
These experiments will help to establish whether this idea could one day become a practical reality.
 
Dr Ruth Bamford of the Rutherford team will present this approach in her talk on Wednesday 18 April at the Royal Astronomical Society National Astronomy Meeting in Preston.
 

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