Star Trek-style shields could block stellar radiation, U.K. scientists say and these same scientists want to investigate whether a Star Trek deflector-type shielding around a spaceship could protect astronauts travelling to Earth’s Moon, Mars and beyond.

Were it not for its handy deflector shields, the Starship Enterprise’s continuing mission in the science-fiction world of Star Trek would have lasted about five minutes, a victim of cosmic rays and Klingon disrupters.

Scientists at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire are set to construct an experimental magnetic shield for spaceships, one that would mimic the way Earth’s own magnetosphere protects us from high energy particles like cosmic rays and the solar wind.

Such a device would be necessary for long space missions, according to researcher Ruth Bamford, who presented the idea on Wednesday at the Royal Astronomical Society National Astronomy Meeting in the U.K.

“Unless you solve this [radiation] problem, you’re going to have a bunch of dead astronauts,” Bamford told the BBC.

Cosmic rays are mostly made up of fast, positively charged ions — atoms that have lost an electron — that are expelled from stellar objects and fly through the universe. Exposure to them or to radiation from the sun itself can cause acute radiation sickness in astronauts and can be lethal.

You can read the full CBC article HERE.