Science Fiction Newsletter - Oct 2011

For a full list of previous issues, go to: "Science Fiction Newsletter - Archives" 

October 1, 2011

Editor: EarlyHours-A Vigilante Ranger
Co-Editor: D. R. Prescott




1. About this Newsletter
2. Letter from the Editor
3. Special Feature
4. Editor's Picks
5. Ask & Answer

Shields and Force Fields in Science Fiction

We all know from watching our favorite sci-fi movies and TV shows that energy shields are a key component of any successful spacecraft. Energy shield technology has been depicted as a concentrated barrier that is able to defend spacecraft from alien weapons, especially those pesky Klingon Disrupter Beams. This is far more advanced than anything we currently have, but is it beyond our reach? Or is this another area that is science fiction today and science fact tomorrow?

"Shields Up!" Almost every Star Trek Episode

Protect your Characters!

In the science fiction literature, energy shields have also been called force fields, deflector shields, and protective shields. The science fiction genre pioneer, E.E. 'Doc" Smith, described the general idea in his 1934 novel, Triplanetary, and probably first used the term shield. A Martian energy shield was depicted in the 1953 movie version of H.G. Well's War of the Worlds. The novel was actually written in 1898, and if the shields were described there, it would be an even earlier reference than E.E. 'Doc' Smith's novel. And, of course, Deflector Shields have been used in Star Trek since The Original Series. But back in The Original Series, they called them Screens.

Another very early reference relates to shielding, albeit unintentional. In 1936, the protagonists of John W. Campbell's The Ultimate Weapon found themselves in need of good shielding from blasts of radiation:

"You mean they bathed that ship in neutrons?"
"Shot it full of 'em. Just like our proton guns, only sending neutrons."

"Well, why weren't we killed too?"

"Water stops neutrons," Kendall said. "Figure it out."

"The rocket-water tanks - all around us... that saved us?"

In real space travel, would we ever need to give the order, Shields Up!? As far as we know, there aren't any Klingons, or any other alien threats. But we would, in fact, need shielding during our exploration of the solar system. Space is a very harsh place, filled with killer radiation, micrometeorites, and space junk hurling around at 17,500 mph! As we explore our neighboring planets, the solar winds would be whipping our spacecraft with low-density plasma and ionizing radiation. Luckily, our planet Earth draws natural protection from its internal magnetic field, which creates the Magnetosphere through its interaction with the solar winds.

Researchers in the UK, Portugal and Sweden are working on an actual energy shield for potential use during upcoming missions to Mars. The theory is that a spacecraft could be protected from radiation with a dipole-like magnetic field and plasma (ionized gas) that surrounds the craft like a 'mini magnetosphere.' Initial laboratory experiments seem to support the possibility that the solar wind could be deflected around an appropriately equipped spacecraft. As writers of science fiction, we can use something like this to protect our characters as they explore the solar system. Simply have them generate a magnetic field around their spacecraft, and then fill the space around the craft with ionized gas. The magnetic field would keep out the solar winds and radiation. To a degree. The same technique could be used to protect an installation on the Moon, or any other place that doesn't have its own magnetosphere like the Earth's. As with other devices we've used in our science fiction, this is another way to use today's cutting-edge research to help our futuristic stories.

"Venus and Mercury, and perchance the other known planets, move about the Sun" Galileo Galilei

Hot and Fast

Who doesn't secretly wish to write a novel set on Mercury? Don't answer. But if your characters were to find themselves on this hot, barren, fast-moving ember that bakes in the solar wind, they would be relieved to know that their writer read this newsletter! Much of our information about Mercury comes from our two exploratory spacecrafts, Mariner 10 and MESSENGER. Even though we are constantly updating our knowledge, we now have enough scientific information to accurately depict a story that we set on Mercury.

Mercury was named after the Roman god of commerce, travel and thievery. It is the closest to the sun, smallest and fastest of all eight planets. At 3,031 miles (4,878 km) in diameter, it is only slightly larger than the Earth's moon, but because of a large iron core it is almost as dense as Earth. Its gravity is 38% of Earth's. A Mercury year (orbit around the sun) is just under 88 Earth days, and its day (rotation around its axis) is about 59 days. Its day is so slow that it only completes three rotations for every two solar orbits. This makes for some interesting temperature variations; the planet surface can range from 100K (-280F, -173C) to 700K (800F, 427C), and there has been speculation about actual water ice at the poles.

Mercury has a very thin atmosphere consisting of atoms blasted off its surface by the solar wind. These atoms quickly escape into space, and so Mercury's atmosphere is constantly being replenished. This might be a good place to raise those energy shields for the protection of your characters. How would we do that? Big water tanks? Charged plasma enclosed in magnetic fields? Believe it or not, we're not the first writers to deal with this planet. While Mars tends to be the planet most writers "gravitate" toward, Mercury has attracted some of our finest novelists.

Fictional works about Mercury can be divided into two groups, based on whether they were written before or after 1965. Before 1965, Mercury was believed to be tidally locked to the Sun, orbiting with one face permanently turned toward it and another face turned away. This created extremes in heat and cold on the same planet. This was disproven in 1965, when Mercury's slow rotation was discovered by astronomers. The "Old" stories had light and dark sides, and many of the "New" novels show characters struggling to stay within the planet's slow-moving terminator (the boundary between day and night).

Ray Cummings wrote Edgar Rice Burroughs-like stories about a tidally-locked Mercury in the 1930's: Tama of the Light Country, Tama, Princess of Mercury, and Aerita of the Light Country. In the 1940's, Leigh Brackett wrote short stories about Mercury, where the characters lived in the "Twilight Belt" and battled dangerous temperature swings and destructive solar storms. A short time later, a tidally locked Mercury was used as the setting for stories by some of our favorite writers in the science fiction genre: Isaac Asimov (The Dying Night, and Lucky Starr and the Big Sun of Mercury), C.L. Lewis (That Hideous Strength), Ray Bradbury (Frost and Fire), and Arthur C. Clarke (Islands in the Sky).

We may be more familiar with the newer Mercury novels. Their writers have taken newly discovered information and used it to solidify the scientific accuracy of their novels. Arthur C. Clarke made up for his earlier ignorance with Rendezvous with Rama, published in 1973. David Brin's Sundiver, 1980, was the start of one of the greatest trilogies involving space between Earth and the Sun, including Mercury. In Stephen Baxter's Manifold: Space, Mercury is humanity's final stronghold when extraterrestrial colonizers exterminate the human race from the rest of the solar system. Finally, as a huge fan of Ben Bova's Grand Tour Series, I must include his Mercury, a novel about the human drama of characters exploring Mercury in an attempt to harness the intense solar energy that close to the sun.

So get to work on those energy shields, force fields, and deflector arrays, because you're going to need them on you next literary trip to Mercury. And besides, you can always re-use those shields on upcoming trips with the Science Fiction Newsletter. Next month is Jupiter!

"Mercury's weak magnetosphere provides very little protection of the planet from the solar wind. Extreme space weather must be a continuing activity at the surface of the planet closest to the Sun." Thomas Zurbuchen

"I had rather be Mercury, the smallest among seven [planets], revolving round the sun, than the first among five [moons] revolving round Saturn." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Some hot and fast Editor's Picks: