An electrostatic deflector shield?

[Patrick Degan]

If you've been following the thread on this discovery over at SLAM, you've seen that a means to use an electrical charge to snuff out fires has apparently been devised. It made me wonder, however, if perhaps this principle could be used as the basis for a deflector shield? Could a ship project a powerful enough discharge around the hull to disrupt a coherent energy beam?

[Sarevok]

If you've been following the thread on this discovery over at SLAM, you've seen that a means to use an electrical charge to snuff out fires has apparently been devised. It made me wonder, however, if perhaps this principle could be used as the basis for a deflector shield? Could a ship project a powerful enough discharge around the hull to disrupt a coherent energy beam?

Shielding spacecraft via active magnetic or electrical fields is an old concept. Most proposals however only consider magnetic fields rather electrical. Which I suspect is due to the ease of setting up one.

[Patrick Degan]

If you've been following the thread on this discovery over at SLAM, you've seen that a means to use an electrical charge to snuff out fires has apparently been devised. It made me wonder, however, if perhaps this principle could be used as the basis for a deflector shield? Could a ship project a powerful enough discharge around the hull to disrupt a coherent energy beam?

Shielding spacecraft via active magnetic or electrical fields is an old concept. Most proposals however only consider magnetic fields rather electrical. Which I suspect is due to the ease of setting up one.

Oh yes. I recall reading about concepts of generating magnetic fields to deflect cosmic radiation and dust particles around a spacecraft, duplicating mechanically and on a smaller scale the protection Earth has by its own planetary magnetic field.

[Swindle1984]

If you've been following the thread on this discovery over at SLAM, you've seen that a means to use an electrical charge to snuff out fires has apparently been devised. It made me wonder, however, if perhaps this principle could be used as the basis for a deflector shield? Could a ship project a powerful enough discharge around the hull to disrupt a coherent energy beam?

Shielding spacecraft via active magnetic or electrical fields is an old concept. Most proposals however only consider magnetic fields rather electrical. Which I suspect is due to the ease of setting up one.

Oh yes. I recall reading about concepts of generating magnetic fields to deflect cosmic radiation and dust particles around a spacecraft, duplicating mechanically and on a smaller scale the protection Earth has by its own planetary magnetic field.

Often featured in works featuring STL spacecraft propelled by a Bussard ramjet, for obvious reasons.

[krakonfour]

Too bad lasers (or any form of 'coherent beem of light' for that matter) are unappected by electrostatic charges or magnetic fields.
Particle beams? I bet a dollar that any particle beam weapon designed not to spread to nothingness in under 2km is going top be neutral, so again, unaffected by charge.
Except if...
You had such a FREAKKINN huge electrostatic charge that protons and electrons seperate in the beam, leading to self-imposed dispersion of the beam. Pity that such an electrostatic charge would also rip apart anything made of matter generating it too...

[Purple]

You had such a FREAKKINN huge electrostatic charge that protons and electrons seperate in the beam, leading to self-imposed dispersion of the beam. Pity that such an electrostatic charge would also rip apart anything made of matter generating it too...

So wait, one could use a massive electrostatic charge as a sort of zap gun? Ok, that sounded obvious in hindsight. But what would be the properties of this sort of weapon and how effective could it get?

[Sarevok]

You had such a FREAKKINN huge electrostatic charge that protons and electrons seperate in the beam, leading to self-imposed dispersion of the beam. Pity that such an electrostatic charge would also rip apart anything made of matter generating it too...

How does that work ? Stripping away electrons is pretty trivial and does not require enormously strong electric fields.

[krakonfour]

"ow does that work ? Stripping away electrons is pretty trivial and does not require enormously strong electric fields."

In this case, you don because the opponent has several hundred to kilometers long linear accelerators to push the charged particles to several petavolts (yes, you need those energies to get a range longer than 1000km), while the electrostatic charge has a very small field depth (100m?). Divide A by B and you'll see that the energy delivered by the field has to surpass the kinetic energy of the beam by a lot.

"So wait, one could use a massive electrostatic charge as a sort of zap gun? Ok, that sounded obvious in hindsight. But what would be the properties of this sort of weapon and how effective could it get?"

Electrostatic zap guns are about as useful as plasma guns.
A strong electrostatic charge could ionize the surface of the target if it is close enough (a few tens of meters, pitiful), allowing extremely strong magnetic fields to act upon it.
This is the mechanism for hypervelocity defense, except the ionization is done during impact. The hypervelocity round practically explodes whenever it touches anything (like a cloud of gas between you and the round), ionizing it. Magnetic fields then control the ionized round turned into plasma and divert it.
A more realistic use of electrostatic guns is to 'zap'. Build up your own electrostatic charge to very high levels, and neutralize it unevenly (pump electrons to starboard, dump protons on the other side). Get close to your enemy. The elctrostatic charge will cause electrons to jump from your ship the opponent's and fry stuff. If the charge is high enough, the electrons will accelerate enough to hit the target armor (if made of metal) with enough energy to cause x-rays
Just remember to isolate your own ship during the process


But come on...you have petavolt particle beams and the capability to generate very large electrostatic charges and you're stuck to fighting at boarding range?!

[Sarevok]

I did not realize you were talking about particle beam defense.

Anyway I should point out that your post has several errors. Like "Petavolt" where it obviously should be PeV.

[krakonfour]

I did not realize you were talking about particle beam defense.

Anyway I should point out that your post has several errors. Like "Petavolt" where it obviously should be PeV.

Right, PeV. We're talking in electronvolts

Besides, particle beam defence is the only practical application of electrostatic fields. Anything else is much more likely to start frying your own craft than anything else (particle beams have a big enough problem neutralizing your beams to you don't become a whopping anode in the face of the solar wind, or heck, the Van Allen belts )