Post by Radrook Admin on Mar 28, 2024 11:26:47 GMT -5
Spaceship Hull-Shielding
Yes unfortunately, and unlike the vehicles that we usually employ to travel here on Earth, such as bicycles, cars, trains and buses and airplanes, spaceships need to be shielded. The reason, of course, is that there are many hazards out there which will endanger the passengers even more if no hull-shielding is employed.
Lets consider some of the dangers that demand spaceship hull-shielding:
1. Intense solar and cosmic ray radiation.
2. Meteors and micrometers.
3. Hull abrasion from cosmic dust.
1. Yes, the solar and cosmic rays do penetrate a ship's hull, and they inflict cellular damage. This becomes especially so during a solar flare or an intensification in solar activity. So the longer the spaceship crew remains in a spaceship, the more cellular damage they will suffer.
2. Microscopic particles gain hull-penetrating kinetic energy the faster they travel ad the faster that the we travel in relation to them. Of course, here on earth such particle are usually harmless unless they are swept by high winds in a dust storm, and become extremely abrasive. In fact, there are machines called sandblasters used in dental laboratories to abrasively clear away cement from flasks.
This abrasive effect is greatly increased at the extremely high velocities we travel in outer space and where high-velocity grains abound, and one never knows when a hull-breach will occur or from what direction
3. Even hull abrasion from cosmic dust was described as capable of obliterating a ship travelling at a significant percentage of the speed of light.
Below are various videos explaining various ship shielding concepts. The introduction video is from the film Passengers, where the ship's shield fails to prevent a hull-breach.
Lets consider some of the dangers that demand spaceship hull-shielding:
1. Intense solar and cosmic ray radiation.
2. Meteors and micrometers.
3. Hull abrasion from cosmic dust.
1. Yes, the solar and cosmic rays do penetrate a ship's hull, and they inflict cellular damage. This becomes especially so during a solar flare or an intensification in solar activity. So the longer the spaceship crew remains in a spaceship, the more cellular damage they will suffer.
2. Microscopic particles gain hull-penetrating kinetic energy the faster they travel ad the faster that the we travel in relation to them. Of course, here on earth such particle are usually harmless unless they are swept by high winds in a dust storm, and become extremely abrasive. In fact, there are machines called sandblasters used in dental laboratories to abrasively clear away cement from flasks.
This abrasive effect is greatly increased at the extremely high velocities we travel in outer space and where high-velocity grains abound, and one never knows when a hull-breach will occur or from what direction
3. Even hull abrasion from cosmic dust was described as capable of obliterating a ship travelling at a significant percentage of the speed of light.
Below are various videos explaining various ship shielding concepts. The introduction video is from the film Passengers, where the ship's shield fails to prevent a hull-breach.
Whipple Shield
The Whipple shield or Whipple bumper, invented by Fred Whipple, is a type of spaced armor shielding to protect crewed and uncrewed spacecraft from hypervelocity impact / collisions with micrometeoroids and orbital debris whose velocities generally range between 3 and 18 kilometers per second (1.9 and 11.2 mi/s). According to NASA, the Whipple shield is designed to withstand collisions with debris up to 1 cm.