Force fields for astronauts

New Scientist SPACE - Breaking News - Force fields may shield astronauts from radiation

This interesting story on a proposal for radiation shielding for astronauts on the moon.

It was a matter of considerable disappointment for my childhood dreams of being a wandering solar system astronaut to learn (as an adult) that space is, generally speaking, very dangerous from a radiation point of view. This got no consideration at all in the kid's (or adult's) science fiction I used to read, mainly because the science just wasn't really known. Now it does get a run in serious hard science fiction. (I just read a Charles Sheffield book in which colonists on Jupiter's moons have to wear super-conducting electronically shielded suits when they are on the surface, but they basically all live underground.) It does make the whole space undertaking much more difficult.

This article from New Scientist does not talk about living underground on the moon, but I always thought that covering a smallish crater with some sort of membrane, baking it solid then burying it with a meter or two of dirt was the way to go. No way would you need to ever bring "concrete" to the moon, as the article suggests at the end. A small electric bulldozer is what you need, and some innovative low gravity construction techniques. Fortunately, a lot of holes are "pre-dug" on the moon.

Presumably there may also be natural caves on the moon, and with its lower gravity, maybe they are bigger than average earth ones. I would have thought that extensive radar or accoustic sounding of possible sites would be one of the early colonization priorities for the moon.

Now I should really get back to work.