On 3/10/2017 9:37 AM, dlzc wrote:
Dear Yousuf Khan:

On Friday, March 10, 2017 at 6:24:53 AM UTC-7, Yousuf Khan wrote:
...
However, I wonder if a large enough magnetic
ring can be used like an ion thruster, only
using the solar wind particles, rather than
Xenon?

Where does it get its power from? Won't be solar panels...

And why not? Just scale up the number of solar panels to the required
level to get to 1 or 2 Tesla.

Not only could they use the magnetic field
to divert the solar winds away from the
planet, they could also use it as thrust to
keep the orbit stable at the L1 point.

... which is not where you really want this half-baked system. The particles this "magnetic shield" is to protect you from, are not moving at c. And Mars is still whipping around at a good clip. The "wake" this system produces will fall behind Mars, not *around* Mars. You'd need to "drive" the object a little forward of the stability point.

The solar winds aren't travelling at c, they're only going between 300 -
750 km/s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind

Yousuf Khan