Joe, Some people are working on it! http://www.minimagnetosphere.org/ http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2008/nov/06/magnetic-shield-could-p... And if you want to really get into it, here's a 5Mb PDF of an engineering presentation: http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/~d76205x/research/Shielding/docs/ToMaSS.pdf Seth -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Joe Bauman Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2012 11:53 AM To: utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Mars exploration Thanks, Seth and Mat -- I guess we'll just have to work on generating an artificial magnetosphere! But even if such a thing were possible, that wouldn't shield the crew from micrometeorites. I'm starting to understand the huge difficulties of space travel. -- Joe