I was always a fan of the Protoss: super-advanced technology, powerful units, and those awesome plasma shields protecting everything from the lowliest probe to gigantic carriers. But I always wondered: could those force fields really work?
Well… Sort of.
It really depends on your definition of a force field and what you want to prevent from passing through. Electric and magnetic fields can exert forces on charged objects, so you could call those “force fields.” If you accept that definition, then there have actually been some NASA studies of how to use force fields on spacecraft and lunar bases.
One of the biggest problems facing human space exploration (aside from the politics) is that space is a dangerous place for humans. Even if we can launch people to Mars, there is a lot of radiation out there, both from the sun and from high-energy events out in the galaxy. That’s why two studies at NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts (which has, sadly, been canceled due to lack of funding) looked into deflecting the radiation with electromagnetic shields. Continue reading
