Skip to main content
Worldbuilding

You are not logged in. Your edit will be placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed.

We welcome edits that make the post easier to understand and more valuable for readers. Because community members review edits, please try to make the post substantially better than how you found it, for example, by fixing grammar or adding additional resources and hyperlinks.

7
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Do you perchance know if LEO objects are partially shielded by magnetosphere from CME radiation and are instead under risk of being fried by EMP blast caused by resultant Geomagnetic Storm? That would be a great reason to stay on station that is both EMP-hardened and radiation shielded (by both lead and magnetosphere) instead of boarding the ship which, to save weight, will have none. $\endgroup$
    – M i ech
    Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 20:35
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ @Miech LEO is well within the magnetosphere. You would be suicidal to leave the magnetosphere when a CME had been reported; with the thrust levels that I understand to be possible in the OP's scenario, I don't see any way of outrunning the mass of charged particles (average speed ~500 km/s), much less the x-rays and near-light speed cosmic rays. Even in the magnetosphere, the interaction of charged particles with the magnetic field will cause all sorts of unwelcome events. $\endgroup$
    – kingledion
    Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 21:16
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ How about a CRE that isn't intense or well-aimed enough to actually be threatening, but just powerful enough to increase the failure rate of electronics (and cancer rates of crew) by a fraction of a percent, and the Space Bureaucrats say that that's considered Unsafe and ground all flights. That sounds like a plausible day-to-day occurrence, for sure. $\endgroup$
    – Maxander
    Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 23:06
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ The CME bothers me because ships are in transit for months. Why would it be an issue for launching only? $\endgroup$
    – JDługosz
    Commented Dec 16, 2016 at 10:09
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ @JDługosz I don't think it would be, but since the OP's question asks for reasons to delay leaving an orbital space station, a CME seems like a good deal. As mentioned in an above comment, you are MUCH safer inside a magnetosphere than outside, so I suspect anyone who could, would get into the magnetosphere if that happened. $\endgroup$
    – kingledion
    Commented Dec 16, 2016 at 14:06