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On the magnetic repulsive shield!
Having a repulsive electromagnetic field at the front of a space craft travelling at or faster than the incredible velocity of one tenth of the speed of light sounds nice, but I do not believe this design would work as you assume it would!
First and foremost, most space debris, dust, is of a non magnetic material and as such would hardly be affected by an electromagnetic field. But let us assume for a moment that all space dust is as iron filings, being readily guided by magnetic forces. Remember when I talked about the relative kinetic energy of a 5 gram piece of space dust when a craft strikes it at 108,000,000 km/h!
All magnetic fields (similar to earth’s gravity) have an effective “event horizon”, a distance at which this field is weakened enough so as not to be noticeable or detectable. Let us assume an unrealistically overpowered repulsive magnetic shield (again assuming the space dust has either a positive or negative charge) could be designed so as to begin repelling space dust at a distance of 1 km. OK, so this field would have to deflect the space dust from the craft’s path in less than 0.00003 of a second before the craft strikes it, assuming the craft is travelling at the stated velocity of one tenth of the speed of light!
Let us now assume that this craft has a radius of about 10 metres. We need to accelerate a 5 gram piece of “negatively charged metallic space dust” a distance of 10 metres in 0.00003 seconds. F=M x A. F= 0.005 x 333,333m/s/s. F= 1.67 kN. I won’t go into detail concerning Faraday’s Law and the amount of energy required to produce the magnetic forces of this strength to a distance of 1 kilometre, but you can believe me it is not going to happen. The repulsive force required is about 34,000 times as strong as earth’s gravity!
Even if it were possible to generate (and sustain) this immense magnetic force (which is not far from the theoretical power of a black hole, only in reverse), there would be no way to protect the ship itself from compacting onto and crushing itself on its own protective magnetic shield.
When considering such things, you must understand the physics involved, and you must make appropriate mathematical study to determine the viability of such ideas. It is by studying such things that I came to the conclusion concerning my design for a protective cone-like shield. Magnetic forces will do nothing in retrospect.
I don’t mean to bust your bubble gentlemen, but keep being creative and I am sure you will make your mark one day!
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Thread 
08/02/04 20:12
. Actually, that sounds a little too extreme.