Forcefields will guard Mars ships from solar ion storms

A team of top boffins believe that they have cracked one of the main problems of interplanetary travel - that of surviving deadly solar radiation storms. The physicists say they have come up with an idea for a crafty forcefield which could stand off the protoplasm-punishing particle squalls of deep space

Source.



WOW!! What are we to make of this exactly? I for one think it's an amazing discovery, and can't wait to see what kinds of things they develop as a result of this new technology.

Anyone else feel that this is a great new toy for science?

Please discuss.

TheBorg

I hope it works out. With technology like that maybe man will be able to go to the Moon for the first time, or maybe even Mars.

If they don't come clean on the whole Apollo thing, then some third world or private space mission will attempt a moon landing and gets cooked like a thanksgiving turkey half way there. There will be a lot of explaining to do when that happens.

Originally posted by Cyberbian
With technology like that maybe man will be able to go to the Moon for the first time

Been there, done that.

If they don't come clean on the whole Apollo thing, then some third world or private space mission will attempt a moon landing and gets cooked like a thanksgiving turkey half way there. There will be a lot of explaining to do when that happens.

Right, and where's the evidence that the van allen belts have that kind of level of radiation flux to kill astronauts passing through it in less than 2 hours? According to Dr. Van Allen himself it should be safe for astronauts who are just passing through and not orbiting around in it.

reply to post by TheBorg


Everything is going 'Star Trek'!
If technology like this was invented, i wonder what else it could be implemented in?

Originally posted by Cyberbian
I hope it works out. With technology like that maybe man will be able to go to the Moon for the first time

Blaa blaa blaa blaa blaa

Some people think we already went to Mars:

In 1950, the U.S. Army Guided Missile Center was moved from Ft. Bliss to Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, Alabama, where von Braun was transferred as technical director. In September of 1951, von Braun’s paper on an 869-day Mars mission was read to the Second International Congress of Astronautics, London (the “Super Zeppelin” probably already made the trip in much faster time, beginning in 1945). On Oct. 12,1951, an ‘unmanned’ two-stage rocket (probably a reworked German two-staged A-9) reached a 250 mile altitude from White Sands.

Next to last paragraph under: THE ROCKET RACKET - Wernher von Braun, Willy Ley, Dr. Robert Goddard, And The Kreisel Teller-p2, In New Mexico and Peenemunde

The Super Zeppelin with 11" steel hull did the protection but seeing
the propulsion system is already done by a surrounding charge field
the protection is perhaps built in and this "force field" has been
used already and verified.