[ExI] Will cosmic rays stop human space travel? (BillK)

[Anders Sandberg]

From:   "Flexman, Connor" <connor_flexman at brown.edu> 

 





Unfortunately, the biggest issue seems to be extending the field far from the spacecraft. As you noted, the field falls off as inverse square of the distance, so unfortunately the field 1 cm from the center of the neodymium magnet is reduced by 4 orders of magnitude a meter out. 




Worse. Magnetic fields are dipoles, so they fall of with the *cube* of distance.


All references I have seen to protection using magnetic fields have sketched rather extended antennas, solenoids or plasma clouds in order to have more time to deflect and less need for a super-strong field. 


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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