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Radiation shield.
Not trolling, just wondering. One of the biggest problems with a mission
to mars or anywhere else is solar radiation. The earth is protected by the van-allen belt. So best way I could thing of that would be light-weight would be a magnetic-shield type generator on the ship itself. Would be very huge so not really plausible. Then I thought, why couldn't you line the hull of the ship with super-conductive wiring of sorts. each would generate a small magnetic bubble around the wire, each wire re-enforcing the one next to it. Problems of keeping it cool like on earth I would think would be easier in space due to the fact that it's already pretty cold in space. A nice side effect of using this as a shield as far as I can see would be the fact that it could also be used as energy storage. So, what you think? Just curious, I understand most people in this group are probably smarter than me as far as this sort of thing goes. ;-) |
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#3
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writes:
Not trolling, just wondering. One of the biggest problems with a mission to mars or anywhere else is solar radiation. The earth is protected by the van-allen belt. So best way I could thing of that would be light-weight would be a magnetic-shield type generator on the ship itself. Would be very huge so not really plausible. Then I thought, why couldn't you line the hull of the ship with super-conductive wiring of sorts. each would generate a small magnetic bubble around the wire, each wire re-enforcing the one next to it. Problems of keeping it cool like on earth I would think would be easier in space due to the fact that it's already pretty cold in space. A nice side effect of using this as a shield as far as I can see would be the fact that it could also be used as energy storage. So, what you think? Just curious, I understand most people in this group are probably smarter than me as far as this sort of thing goes. ;-) *Solar* radiation is not actually that much of a problem for space flight. The sort of radiation the Sun puts out on a normal basis, is not energetic enough to penetrate the skin of any reasonable spacecraft. Solar flares and similar events are associated with intense, lethal radiation, but this lasts only a few hours and can be detected at least half an hour in advance. So retreating to a small, shielded enclosure for the duration is an quite reasonable solution. And the level of shielding required, is fairly modest. Just packing all your crew's food and drinking water around yhe shelter, for example, would suffice. Somewhat more worrisome is *cosmic* radiation. This is much more energetic, requiring something like half a meter of lead to stop, and it is a steady bombardment rather than a series of predictable bursts. If you can't shield your entire habitable volume with that half-meter of lead or the equivalent, you just have to take it. And while it is not intense enough to be an acute hazard, a year's exposure would be associated with a ~3% increase in lifetime cancer risk. So we'd like to block the cosmic radiation if we could. Magnetic shielding has been proposed as a means of doing this, but cosmic ray energies are sufficiently high that it takes either a very large or a very strong magnetic field to provide effective shielding. Larger and/or more intense than can be generated by even superconducting magnets of reasonable size and weight, using present materials. It's a good idea, but before its time. -- *John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, * *Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" * *Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition * *White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute * * for success" * *661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition * |
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"John Schilling" wrote in message
... writes: Not trolling, just wondering. One of the biggest problems with a mission to mars or anywhere else is solar radiation. The earth is protected by the van-allen belt. So best way I could thing of that would be light-weight would be a magnetic-shield type generator on the ship itself. Would be very huge so not really plausible. Then I thought, why couldn't you line the hull of the ship with super-conductive wiring of sorts. each would generate a small magnetic bubble around the wire, each wire re-enforcing the one next to it. Problems of keeping it cool like on earth I would think would be easier in space due to the fact that it's already pretty cold in space. A nice side effect of using this as a shield as far as I can see would be the fact that it could also be used as energy storage. So, what you think? Just curious, I understand most people in this group are probably smarter than me as far as this sort of thing goes. ;-) *Solar* radiation is not actually that much of a problem for space flight. The sort of radiation the Sun puts out on a normal basis, is not energetic enough to penetrate the skin of any reasonable spacecraft. Solar flares and similar events are associated with intense, lethal radiation, but this lasts only a few hours and can be detected at least half an hour in advance. So retreating to a small, shielded enclosure for the duration is an quite reasonable solution. And the level of shielding required, is fairly modest. Just packing all your crew's food and drinking water around yhe shelter, for example, would suffice. Somewhat more worrisome is *cosmic* radiation. This is much more energetic, requiring something like half a meter of lead to stop, and it is a steady bombardment rather than a series of predictable bursts. If you can't shield your entire habitable volume with that half-meter of lead or the equivalent, you just have to take it. And while it is not intense enough to be an acute hazard, a year's exposure would be associated with a ~3% increase in lifetime cancer risk. So we'd like to block the cosmic radiation if we could. Magnetic shielding has been proposed as a means of doing this, but cosmic ray energies are sufficiently high that it takes either a very large or a very strong magnetic field to provide effective shielding. Larger and/or more intense than can be generated by even superconducting magnets of reasonable size and weight, using present materials. It's a good idea, but before its time. Well crap, if it's only about an increase of ~3% risk then it seems like your risk of getting cancer in space is much less than living in the polution infested planet in which we are currently living. But that's a whole different subject. ;-) Another more off the wall question, could magentic waves propell you through space? -- Matthew Hagston Hungates Creative Toys and Hobbies ........ http://www.hungates.com -- *John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, * *Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" * *Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition * *White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute * * for success" * *661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition * |
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"Matthew Hagston" wrote in message link.net...
Well crap, if it's only about an increase of ~3% risk then it seems like your risk of getting cancer in space is much less than living in the polution infested planet in which we are currently living. But that's a whole different subject. ;-) Another more off the wall question, could magentic waves propell you through space? -- Matthew Hagston Hungates Creative Toys and Hobbies ........ http://www.hungates.com Hey dude, check out this site: http://www.ess.washington.edu/Space/propulsion.html They talk about making a magnetic plasma bubble around your ship to filter out radiation. Because plasma is low density, you can make your bubble kilometers in diameter. You just need enough power to sustain it. Perhaps the radiation could supply some of that power? |
#6
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"John Schilling" wrote in message ... Solar flares and similar events are associated with intense, lethal radiation, but this lasts only a few hours and can be detected at least half an hour in advance. Could you clarify this. I understood that peak radiation occurs in a short period but that increased radiation can be present for a longer period even days. Also, what infrastructure would be needed to provide detection, verification and notification to travellers with a half hour advance warning. I understood that minutes warning was the more likely scenario and that is assuming a successful detection with significant infrastructure. So retreating to a small, shielded enclosure for the duration is an quite reasonable solution. And the level of shielding required, is fairly modest. Just packing all your crew's food and drinking water around yhe shelter, for example, would suffice. Of course if your talking about a few food bars and a couple of bags of water for the trip to the moon this is highly unlikely to offer any real protection. Additionally, given these are consumables, wouldnt you also need to incorporate your waste streams into such a protection, otherwise your likely to be on a ever increasing radiation environment as you consume food and water. Somewhat more worrisome is *cosmic* radiation. This is much more energetic, requiring something like half a meter of lead to stop, and it is a steady bombardment rather than a series of predictable bursts. I thought lead was a terrible radiation shield and compared poorly with hydrogen rich materials. Would half a meter of lead really stop the energetic particles or simply transform them into radiation of a more life threatening kind. If you can't shield your entire habitable volume with that half-meter of lead or the equivalent, you just have to take it. And while it is not intense enough to be an acute hazard, a year's exposure would be associated with a ~3% increase in lifetime cancer risk. Are you sure about this. What age group are we talking about, what exposure. A 18 year old male sitting in a apollo capsule for a year is going to have significantly more than a 3% mortality increase assuming he even survives at all. Are you sure your not referring to LEO radiation as opposed to the Space Environment. So we'd like to block the cosmic radiation if we could. Sure, which I would think, cover you for any Solar events as well. |
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On Tue, 09 Nov 2004 06:10:55 GMT, Christian Ramos
wrote: Somewhat more worrisome is *cosmic* radiation. This is much more energetic, requiring something like half a meter of lead to stop, and it is a steady bombardment rather than a series of predictable bursts. Several Apollo astronauts complained about flashing streaks in their eyes. A astronaut was set out to test this. He closed his eyes and saw the flashes. It was found to be cosmic radiation. When the space helmet glass was viewed under a microscope you could see the trails where cosmic rays had penetrated. There is no doubt that this is a real threat with long exposure. Modern shielding uses segmented shielding. Multiple layers with air/vacuum between them. NASA has done extensive research on more effective shielding for the space station. Look at NASA's web site. (www.nasa.gov) -- Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/ |
#8
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"John Thingstad" wrote in message news ....snipped comment from John Schilling erroneously attributed to me... There is no doubt that this is a real threat with long exposure. Modern shielding uses segmented shielding. Multiple layers with air/vacuum between them. I'm familiar with this approach for thermal protection and some aspects of meteorite protection. I would think this approach would be useless for radiation though. Many of the studies seem to indicate a multi segmented shield whereby different materials are used, but the gaps appear irrelevant in this case. Also, there is no real agreement/data on what the real environment is like or acurate ways to measure the Biological impact of radiation found in space given our lack of experience in such an environment. NASA has done extensive research on more effective shielding for the space station. Look at NASA's web site. (www.nasa.gov) Sure they have, however, the radiation environment of outer space is not the same as that in LEO. Some would argue that it is totally irrelevant, although that may be a stretch. |
#9
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"Christian Ramos" wrote in message
... "John Thingstad" wrote in message news ...snipped comment from John Schilling erroneously attributed to me... There is no doubt that this is a real threat with long exposure. Modern shielding uses segmented shielding. Multiple layers with air/vacuum between them. I'm familiar with this approach for thermal protection and some aspects of meteorite protection. I would think this approach would be useless for radiation though. Many of the studies seem to indicate a multi segmented shield whereby different materials are used, but the gaps appear irrelevant in this case. Also, there is no real agreement/data on what the real environment is like or acurate ways to measure the Biological impact of radiation found in space given our lack of experience in such an environment. NASA has done extensive research on more effective shielding for the space station. Look at NASA's web site. (www.nasa.gov) Sure they have, however, the radiation environment of outer space is not the same as that in LEO. Some would argue that it is totally irrelevant, although that may be a stretch. In the famous works of Joey Tribiani the protective shielding of the space station is a "Moo Point". They have less radiation to consider due to the fact that it is close to the protective embrace of mother Earth. Trying to think about the radiation protection we as humans would need in other star systems that may probably produce even more radiation than our own sun is a "Moo Point" as well. As we cannot yet travel to other stars there is little to no need to worry about this yet. Protection for traveling to other planets and asteroids for exploration and hopefully commercial use was my only real concern. Protection for humans, and for plants as the ability to grow our own food supplies in space. A topographical type solution like the one I initially suggested seems to me the only real viable solution. Though more expensive initially it would in theory offer a great amount of protection with little energy costs. Due to the cold nature of space this i would think this could be used to keep the super conductive 'sheath' cold with little need to draw excess power from the 'ship'. This could also be used to dump the excess power into this organized chaos of protective wiring for emergency usage. This seems like a better long-term solution to me instead of letting your water and food stores protect you. This also makes me wonder if using your food and water stores as protection if they themselves become contaminated by space radiation? From a manufacturing standpoint it would be a good idea as well. Anything when you produce tiny amounts of it in limited areas is expensive. When you start producing greater amounts due to increased demand then cost in turn decreases. We have many uses for super conductive type materials and should not wait for the 0k mark to produce them. But would take the government investing money more in mass to get those types of factories jumpstarted. |
#10
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"Christian Ramos" wrote in message ...
Also, there is no real agreement/data on what the real environment is like or acurate ways to measure the Biological impact of radiation found in space given our lack of experience in such an environment. Ok, why hasnt anybody put lab rats on any of the mars-bound orbiters yet, just to monitor the effects on health ? Eventually some living organism is going to have to take the trip, and it would be kinda stupid to have the first human crew as test subjects. -kert |
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