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What does it take to create a magnetic shield? Given unlimited rare earth metals and such
by ikekkdcjkfke 2y ago
What does it take to create a magnetic shield? Given unlimited rare earth metals and such
- belter 2y agoIf you would limit to debris up to 250 grams, and not forgetting they arrive at a speed of at least 10 to 15 km/s, you would need a magnetic field of 2 to 4 Tesla. That is more than inside an MRI machine. Not feasible....
- HanClinto 2y agoCould it at least be a partial shield to help slow things down? And maybe not directly on the station itself, but perhaps as a cloud of drone-ship defensive satellites to provide a defensive array around the space station -- almost like a fleet of smaller boats providing a perimeter around a larger aircraft carrier?
- philipwhiuk 2y agoWell done, you created a cloud of debris to hit the ISS instead of just a single fragment.
- HanClinto 2y agoEven if that's true, then wouldn't that mean that any impact is now distributed, and the severity of any individual impact is now mitigated? If any kinetic energy can be divided and distributed amongst multiple projectiles (rather than a single point), then doesn't that lessen its severity?
- capitainenemo 2y agoHow about just a sacrificial shield well in front of the station along its orbital path? and/or a weaker magnetic one, also further ahead (further ahead would allow for deflecting slightly at lower power surely).
- swamp40 2y agoA large disc of lead or steel. With thrusters to position properly. Or multiple discs that spread out like flower petals.
- bell-cot 2y agoProblem #1 with the ISS having a shield "out front" - both the station and things that might hit it are traveling ~8km/sec. With the latter approaching from random-ish directions. That means the shield needs to cover a ~180 degree arc in front of the most of the ISS. (Which still would not intercept everything.) At such a size, even a pretty-very thin shield would have a huge mass. Problem #2 - at those velocities, even puny bits of debris can punch through serious thicknesses of armor. (The "high velocity" shells that modern tanks use to kill each other are slow-pitch softballs by comparison.) And the "friendly fire shotgun blast" of debris created when a small piece of orbital junk goes through the shield can be far deadlier than that bit of junk would have been all by itself.
- capitainenemo 2y agoaerogel? plus something in front of it to fragment the larger bits? https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20130012682 https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20130012682 found this idea searching for that actually..
- wlesieutre 2y agoIf you fragment the larger bits now you have a bunch of small bits that cross your orbit, are harder to track, and are still going very fast
- capitainenemo 2y agono. like the proposal in the article above. a sandwich of thin light layers that fragment, plus much thicker layers of aerogel behind it to catch the tiny bits. All in one piece, so no bits flying off anywhere. Similar strategy to bullet proof vests actually (deform, then catch), but with a lot lighter of materials.
- FireBeyond 2y agoMost current MRIs operate at around 1.5T, but this is also a measure of cost vs performance and results, not feasibility. Many will go up to 6T or so. I believe some of the more research oriented MRIs can hit 10T+.
- bigfudge 2y agoIn a small area, Inside a tube the size of a large truck. Not facing outwards from a large space station …
- oceanplexian 2y agoWith room temperature superconductors it would not only be possible but probably wouldn’t require any energy input to maintain the magnetic field.
- TaylorAlexander 2y agoMuch more than room temperature is required. The exterior of the ISS gets up to 120 degrees C: https://www.scienceabc.com/nature/universe/is-it-hot-or-cold-at-the-international-space-station.html https://www.scienceabc.com/nature/universe/is-it-hot-or-cold...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Legend2440 2y agoSure, but if we're inventing things from science fiction we might as well avoid debris by phasing into the 4th dimension.
- kabdib 2y agoThat would be a STRONG magnetic field. Not a safe environment for people (think about living in the same room as an MRI magnet). Also, not all satellite debris is metallic. Any ceramic / glass / plastic would zip right through.
- buildsjets 2y agoI would also wager that there is very little magnetic steel is used in the construction of spacecraft. Most grades of stainless steel, are not magnetic, and neither are aluminum and titanium are not magnetic. Very, very little carbon steel is used in modern commercial aircraft, and I would imagine an order of magnitude less would be used on a spacecraft.
- 12thhandyman 2y agoI interned with GE a while back maintaining their MRIs around sf Bay Area. Think most machines are 1.5T (tesla) with a large minority being 3T. Believe there are 7T machines used for veterinary research/care.
- kylehotchkiss 2y agoThank you for the mental image of a horse inside an MRI machine before his big race day
- dialup_sounds 2y agoMake sure he takes his shoes off
- throwaway173738 2y agoI bet they’re carbon fiber now.
- hagbard_c 2y agoA magnetic shield would not keep away non-conductive objects.
- thereisnospork 2y agoThat's what the 30mm point defense cannon is for.
- michaelsbradley 2y agoHow does the recoil work out?
- serf 2y agothe same way they ever make ballistic weapons in space work in fiction, an aim-able exhaust port and accompanying verniers. or, for bonus points during an extra busy war, symmetrical cannons firing synchronized volleys.
- klyrs 2y agoIf you paint them with an electron beam, the magnetic shield will deflect them marvelously
- autoexec 2y agoWould sending out an electron beam move the space station?
- klyrs 2y agoOf course it would! But deflecting space debris is gonna cause motion as well.
- ASalazarMX 2y agoAt the energies needed to power a magnetic shield, and the precision needed to tag hipersonic debris with an electron beam, why not vaporize/deflect them with lasers instead?
- thangalin 2y agoWhy not aerogel? https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19990116769/downloads/19990116769.pdf https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19990116769/downloads/19...
- chiph 2y agoRecently some parts of a Crew Dragon landed in western North Carolina. The largest piece found so far is about the size of a car hood (~2.3 square meters) (insert joke about strange American measurement units here), and appears to mostly be carbon fiber. https://www.space.com/nasa-confirms-debris-spacex-crew-dragon https://www.space.com/nasa-confirms-debris-spacex-crew-drago... Which sent me on a path to find out if carbon fiber is magnetic, and it appears to depend on the weave, the angle relative to the field, the strength of the field (naturally), and whether the magnetic field is static or alternating, and at what frequency. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012JAP...112k3921G/abstract https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012JAP...112k3921G/abstra...