Hello all. 

We all know space is dangerous. One of the dangers you don’t immediately notice is space radiation. 

Let’s consider we are building a large base above our planet, a space station. Fairly large enough to host 5000 people or so, gravity problems aside, how would we effectively shield this station from radiation? Considerd with our present engineering tech. I have heard from water shielding, but I don’t know the details and size of such shielding? I imagine you would a huge amount of water around the station. 

Any ideas? Shoot 😁

The idea of an artificial magnetic field to protect the Station is not a bad idea. A quick search gave some very interesting articles in that regard. Especially the Articles about the Mini-Magnetospheres. If i´m not mistaken, such shields should be feasible with our current tech. Now combine it with modular and exchangable Armor, as described above, would be an interesting concept.

Edit:
What gives me a Headache is the powerconsumption of such a shield....

Could artificial orbit help, like one on planet earth ?

Magnetic field cannot protect a human team against space Radiation, since the ratiation has no a charge. It shields against space Protons only. For gamma-Radiation we are in need of the such protection as nuclear power plants: concrete, metall or water. The water is a bad solution for space conditions as the micro-meteorites could perforate the water tank. So, concrete or metall.

Hi Glenn,

Great technical question!

The only real solution to space radiation is mass shielding. There may be a possibility in time to develop a magnetosphere like the earth, but that would require obscene amounts of energy. 

There are 2 sources of radiation: from the sun, and the cosmic background. You might think the solar radiation could be blocked by a single shield between the station and the sun, but actually it will come at you from all directions except behind as the particles move in spirals. 

But don't worry too much about all that yet! In Low Earth, Equatorial orbit the radiation dose is minimal enough that shielding is unnecessary. Al Globus' design for a habitat in LEO [1, figure 1 on p6] shows this with data from the ISS. The mass of a habitat in ELEO is limited by the structural requirements, not the need for shielding. If there are plans to move out to L5 or beyond, shielding can be added in situ. You'd need 7 tons per m² of water or polyethylene (the basic packaging plastic) or 10 tons of moon dirt [1. Table 5 on p16]. 

That design makes a lot of sense to me and seems to be feasible, its definitely worth a read! I'm very keen to work on it as a home in the sky for Asgardians!

Hello Everyone,

be a great to can be used that radiation, like a special generator who absorbing that radiation and transfer it at energy for engine or something else...

I don't know how many of you thinking about some machine who clear our orbit from older satellites, because many of this satellites is unusable and it's dangerous. If all unusable satellites be start to down at the Planet Earth be catastrophic.