this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2024
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[–] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago (23 children)

“You can’t protect them from galactic radiation using shielding, but as we learn more about renal biology it may be possible to develop technological or pharmaceutical measures to facilitate extended space travel.”

I wonder why

[–] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 23 points 1 year ago (16 children)

If you're asking about the shielding, probably the mass required for materials that are generally used for radiation shielding. If the craft is built terrestrially, the amount of energy necessary to launch would be insurmountable with current chemical rockets.

Now, if the craft were manufactured in space (and forming of the shielding materials were practical in low-G), the problematic materials could be shuttled up over time, making it a non-issue. This would, of course, also mean that the craft could not be used for re-entry and would require landing craft. And there's all the logistics challenges (supplying air, etc). Probably though the direction that will be necessary for long-distance space craft.

[–] notfromhere@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I wonder how much energy would have to be generated to have an active “shield generator” that would positively charge the hull to deflect the solar radiation from it?

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The trouble is that solar radiation has both charge polarities in it, meaning your charged shield only deflects half the particles while attracting the other half.

[–] notfromhere@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Oh that is interesting. Maybe an oscillating polarity could do it?

[–] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 year ago

First, you'd need to figure out the best "energy shield(s)" for deflecting the problematic radiation. A quick glance shows that there's been some promising research using charged plasma bubbles contained by superconductors. That does not sound likely to be low energy. Then there's other problems like getting telemetry data, etc. Would be awesome if such an approach were proven to work.

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