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| Image Source: CNN.com |
I saw this late last month, and thought: "hmm". The plasma is atmospheric, so at this point if it does work (see Wired's caveat emptor below), "raising shields" has to be below a Clarke Orbit. We may or may not achieve the exact effect of writers' imaginations. Certain things we take for granted - automatic doors (via optical electronics), cellular telephones, radio frequency remote control, rocketry - used to be the stuff of science fiction writer's dreams. Along with warp drive, we may have to wait for the science to disprove it, or manifest it.
(CNN) Raise shields!
Boeing has been granted a patent for a force field-like defense system, leading excited sci-fi fans to herald the advent of something previously seen only in the realms of "Star Wars" or "Star Trek."
Filed in 2012, the USPTO has granted the aerospace giant a patent for a "method and system for shockwave attenuation via electromagnetic arc."
On first look, it seems that they're onto something similar to "Star Wars'" deflector shields. The patent describes a system that would detect the shockwave from a nearby explosion and create an area of ionized air -- a plasma field -- between the oncoming blast and the vehicle it was protecting.
The method works, says the patent, "by heating a selected region of the first fluid medium rapidly to create a second, transient medium that intercepts the shockwave and attenuates its energy density before it reaches a protected asset."
By creating a temporary, superheated parcel of air with a laser, microwave or electrical arc, researchers believe that the shockwave would, in theory -- it hasn't been determined how far along Boeing's research into this has got -- dissipate once it hit the plasma field, leaving whatever was on the other side unaffected, or for the blast to at least be mitigated.
Wired: That Boeing Force Field? It Probably Won't Ever Work. Rhett Allain
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