Plasma shields like in star trek will they be possible

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SUMMARY

The discussion centers on the feasibility of plasma shields, akin to those depicted in science fiction like Star Trek. Participants highlight the significant energy requirements for creating plasma windows and the inherent challenges in maintaining plasma states, particularly the necessity of high temperatures to prevent recombination. The consensus is that while concepts like cold plasma and magnetic containment are intriguing, they do not provide practical solutions for shielding spacecraft from high-velocity projectiles. Ultimately, plasma shields remain a fictional concept with no current real-world application.

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  • #31
The concept of a plasma shield does not make sense if you are trying to shield a phyiscal missile. However, the Starship Enterprise will be attacked by high energy beams, of particles or photons (phasors). A plasma shield makes a lot of sense in this case. A magnetic field can be used as a vessel and it can be filed with a plasma to act as a shield very similar to the van allen belts. Radiation will be scattered by the plasma. The plasma can absord and dissipate the energy very effectively whereas a metal shield would melt. Even today if we were to go to Mars on a manned mission plasma shields would probably be needed because of the solar flares.
 
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  • #32
what if you could contain a gas inside a field, plasma is a gas that can increase in density/viscosity...its scientifically probably possible to stop a bullet because the Earth exists as example, it has a shield impenetrable to bullets, our atmosphere cannot be penetrated by bullets, it requires a huge mass in order of several million bullets in mass, traveling at many times speed of bullet out of a gun to have enough mass left to barely harm the bumper of an old model T. 2 spaceships stationary fighting each other will not have weapons of such velocity or mass. The Earth is only several kilometer of dense air if you even call it that since we live inside of that section of air.
 
  • #33
palsmashield said:
what if you could contain a gas inside a field, plasma is a gas that can increase in density/viscosity...

Plasma is not a gas, but I think I get what you are saying.

its scientifically probably possible to stop a bullet because the Earth exists as example, it has a shield impenetrable to bullets, our atmosphere cannot be penetrated by bullets, it requires a huge mass in order of several million bullets in mass, traveling at many times speed of bullet out of a gun to have enough mass left to barely harm the bumper of an old model T. 2 spaceships stationary fighting each other will not have weapons of such velocity or mass. The Earth is only several kilometer of dense air if you even call it that since we live inside of that section of air.

You cannot contain plasma in a field like this. The magnets that create the magnetic field to contain the plasma would be OUTSIDE the plasma, as charged particles move away from the stronger areas of a magnetic field.
 
  • #34
I am strongly considering a type of external hot plasma around some ships in my novel. Having looked at some research that's been done I found out that the density of the plasma between electrodes varies with the frequency employed. So the higher the AC frequency, the denser the field will become. That also might address the comment about attracting ferrous asteroids since AC should act neutrally if not even be slightly repulsive.

I saw the article mentioned earlier and it can hold air from crossing, which is a low density gas, but at extremely high frequencies and perhaps with dust plasma, there may be sufficient density to perhaps not vaporize a high speed object, but rather like some military strategies for ICBM defenses, which just throw something like BB shot into its path, it let's the high speed impact caused by the projectile to destroy itself in passing through the pack. At least the explosive component will be destroyed passing through the 'shield' in our case. And if dense enough, perhaps it will be slowed or blunted enough to shred enough so that it will not impact on one single point on the hull; reducing damage, maybe significantly.

For the energies I am enabling and high frequencies for my story "Ring Gate", it's enough to be 'reasonably effective' though not impervious. Of course real-life and your mileage may vary. It works much better to diffuse laser beams than stop kinetic-based weapons. And there are ways to be mostly protected with small open windows to see passed the shield clearly, which would also be a consideration for a real plasma shied.
But I can't divulge all my secrets here. :approve:
 
  • #35
MikeBH said:
of particles or photons (phasors).

Oh my!... they're phasers, not phasors.


Carry on... :smile:


OCR
 

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