Here on Earth, we have a magnetosphere and atmosphere to keep us safe from the Sun's ejections, but I got to thinking about it, with the sheer number of habitats around the system now, every CME has a much higher chance of hitting something electronic and vital. And without a planet's worth of protection, that's a lot of EM emission to soak, particularly in-system.
I guess I'm wondering how effective hardening is against that kind of onslaught, and what kind of backup systems you'd see. Crucial records still being kept on paper-analogue (probably some kind of plastic sheets, in reality), vital systems behind incredibly thick shielding, and every habitat (and on larger habitats, every neighborhood) will have radiation shelters...but what does that leave for a smaller tin-can or cluster habitat that gets hit with a bad solar storm? A significant solar storm can kill an unshielded human in minutes, after all.
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CME / Habitat Hardening
Tue, 2015-07-14 14:33
#1
jKaiser
CME / Habitat Hardening
Tue, 2015-07-14 15:31
#2
Trappedinwikipedia
Seeing as Ukko Jylina exists
Seeing as Ukko Jylina exists I'm imagine the shielding needed for most habs is pretty trivial. Eclipse Phase has very matured magnetic technology (the plasma rifle exists for one) so I'd imagine that larger habs simply generate their own magnetic field for shielding when needed. Because its a lot smaller than a planetary magnetic field more would probably leak though. Morph morphs appear pretty radiation tolerant with basic biomods though, and most forms of storage are going to be pretty much immune to electromagnetic effects. Nanorod diamond is a pretty sturdy storage medium, and implied at least to be extremely common. Larger habs actually have enough internal atmosphere is serve for primary radiation shielding, so an artificial magnetic field plus internal atmosphere should be enough for transhuman populations.
Forced growth facilities, especially for morphs, potentially need better shielding, as do smaller habs. I don't remember a lot of tin cans and similar in the inner system though, which may be related to the radiation environment, but the superstructure of everything else can probably handle it ok.
For most habs, the exterior walls are that incredibly thick shielding, with internal atmo and anything else serving as supplementary defense.
Tue, 2015-07-14 15:49
#3
jKaiser
Wouldn't that limit the
Wouldn't that limit the effectiveness of solar panels, having an EM shield like that? Most habitats aren't hurting for power, of course, and there's always the option of a solar "mast" tether a few dozen kilometers long, so I'm mostly curious about the science therein.
Tue, 2015-07-14 16:01
#4
uwtartarus
Solar power on the surface
Solar power on the surface works okay despite the ideal shield, right?
I have no clue otherwise though, liberal arts major here.
—
Exhuman, and Humanitarian.
Tue, 2015-07-14 16:13
#5
Trappedinwikipedia
Magnetic fields don't impede
Magnetic fields don't impede photons because photons don't carry a charge. You'd need physical shielding for gamma radiation, but charged particles would be defected by the magnetic field. This might take a significant amount of a hab's power supply, as CMEs interact with earth's magnetic field to the tune of Terawatts, but even the largest habs are tiny compared to earth, so it should be much less. It might be the kind of thing which is turned on when needed, and left inactive otherwise.
Tue, 2015-07-14 18:16
#6
MrWigggles
How do you know when its
How do you know when its needed? All the bad particles are moving at the speed of light...
So if you're sending out an active pulse to detect the bad particles, they'll return with the bad particles and therefore cannot give you a warning.
If you just have passive detection, then when the detector goes off, they're striking the station too.
And you can't just send out the detector ahead in space, as information can only travel at the speed of light as well. So even if you put out passive detector at a light second out (299,792km), the offending particle will arrive when the information does.
Tue, 2015-07-14 18:22
#7
uwtartarus
Because the Solarians warn
Because the Solarians warn everyone when things get rough? Some sort of Heliophysics or something: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliophysics
—
Exhuman, and Humanitarian.
Tue, 2015-07-14 18:32
#8
MrWigggles
Thats not the only source of
Thats not the only source of deadly deadly radiation. Its granted, the primary source. And I dont think the nomadic sunwhales give a fuck about space stations beside their own.
Tue, 2015-07-14 18:47
#9
Trappedinwikipedia
CMEs only travel about 3.2k
CMEs only travel about 3.2k km/s tops, so seeing them coming is very possible. Solar flares are faster, but much less dangerous. Even if they were traveling at c, a QE comm could provide simple information for a long time.
Tue, 2015-07-14 19:16
#10
jKaiser
We can predict them by
We can predict them by watching the solar weather. We do that now, even, for most of them. In that regard the surface of the sun isn't so different from a huge storm in that we can see the indicators forming well before anything dangerous actually happens. The solar stations probably get a lot of their funding from people with a lot of assets in place that benefit from up to date solar weather reports...so, pretty much everyone.
Tue, 2015-07-14 20:19
#11
MrWigggles
QE Comms are suppose to be
QE Comms are suppose to be prohibitively expensive, they can't just be the answer most things.
Tue, 2015-07-14 20:42
#12
jKaiser
They're cheaper than
They're cheaper than rebuilding X dozen habitats after a CME cooks them.
And again, they don't need to be QE. From what I'm seeing the mass ejections are slower than light, and again these things are predictable. I suppose freak storms are possible, but even then, you might need QE to warn the habitats inside Mercury's orbit, and they're going to be solar bunkers anyway.
Tue, 2015-07-14 21:04
#13
MrWigggles
Solar ejections are slower
Solar ejections are slower then c its swath of radiation isn't
Tue, 2015-07-14 21:29
#14
jKaiser
Then they use QE if it's
Then they use QE if it's really that dangerous. Prohibitively expensive it may be for a sentinel, but when significant arcs of the solar system depend on an early warning system to keep them from being cooked by our native nuclear furnace, I don't think finding funding is that big of an issue, and again, they watch the solar weather for this. Every habitat within the danger zone is going to be watching the sun and keyed into the solar weather network. I don't know how fast things develop in the Sun like that, but you're going to have at least some head's up with EP's level of technology. The sunwhales may or may not care, but the argonauts all around the Sun do, and need to be funded by someone.
All those [em]ships[/em] on the other hand are another question. And I did a bit of re-reading, and the Coronal habitats are essentially matroschka bathyspheres, a sphere inside a massive tank of water inside a fuckoff radshield. How far from the Sun do you all figure that design stretches? Mercury-Sol, perhaps?
Wed, 2015-07-15 01:22
#15
uwtartarus
They can definitely predict
They can definitely predict them, on top of having some safety measures in place, it isn't like a sudden creak CME is going to instantly kill all life outside an atmosphered world, is it?
I genuinely don't know for certain I mean.
Regardless, I expect they forecast as much as they can.
—
Exhuman, and Humanitarian.
Wed, 2015-07-15 19:36
#16
Trappedinwikipedia
The radiation from a CME
The radiation from a CME/solar flare isn't really the dangerous part. Most of the dangerous radiation appears to be soft x-rays which are pretty easy to shield against, so most habs should withstand the radiation reasonably well. Much of the danger is from protons, which are moving a lot slower.
Thinking about this a little more, I imagine that solar prediction has become much better in EP than today, so I doubt that the sun does much that Transhumanity doesn't know about weeks in advance.
CMEs tend to go is fairly specific directions, so a freak uncontrolled one would be a problem for a region, but not the entire solar system.
Thu, 2015-07-16 09:15
#17
ThatWhichNeverWas
Totally out of my wheelhouse.
The radiation from CMEs isn't too much of an issue, especially with the advent of metamaterials; afaik, it should be quite possible to put a layer of "invisibility" metamaterial shielding into the hull configured for the hazardous wavelengths, so any harmful radiation never actually penetrates.
The power requirements of a magnetic shield to handle particulate matter can be handled via room-temperature-superconducting batteries. The only "problem" as has been stated is knowing when to turn it on.
—
In the past we've had to compensate for weaknesses, finding quick solutions that only benefit a few.
But what if we never need to feel weak or morally conflicted again?
Thu, 2015-07-16 10:17
#18
jKaiser
Which is where the various
Which is where the various Argonaut and other solar watch groups come in. That's probably one of the few system-wide services to enjoy significant funding from all major polities, as I've mused before.
Thu, 2015-07-16 13:28
#19
Trappedinwikipedia
I'm skeptical that
I'm skeptical that metamaterials could handle ionizing radiation. Making structures that small which aren't damaged by the radiation sounds really difficult. X-ray optics do exist though, so some methods for directing them should be around. I'm just not sure of how long a metamaterial cloak for x-rays would last. For reference, the invisibility cloak doesn't work on x-rays.
Tue, 2015-07-21 10:04
#20
ThatWhichNeverWas
Blasphemy! Metamaterials can do anything! :P
I was assuming that wavelengths beyond that covered by Invisibility were simply impractical for standard use, instead of being flat-out impossible.
One possibility is that X-ray meta-materials are ablative, or require a dedicated nanoswarm to repair the damage incurred in use.
—
In the past we've had to compensate for weaknesses, finding quick solutions that only benefit a few.
But what if we never need to feel weak or morally conflicted again?