Those venturing into space face a very serious occupational hazard -- cancer. The disease can be caused by radiation from the cosmic rays and solar flares astronauts encounter when they travel beyond the Earth's protective magnetic layer or magnetosphere.

British scientists are working on rectifying this problem by creating a Star Trek-style deflector shield to protect astronauts from radiation.

Think about this:

Scientists wish to mimic the magnetic field that protects the Earth with shields deployed around spacecraft and on the surfaces of planets to deflect harmful energetic particles.

Details, presented at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting in Preston, UK, include the following:

• The idea has been linked to the deflector shields that protect the USS Enterprise and other spacecraft on Star Trek. The shields, like on the TV show, could be switched on and off.

• In order to make the shield, scientists must generate a magnetic field and then fill it with ionized gas, or plasma. As energetic particles interact with the plasma, energy is sapped away from them, causing them to slow down.

• Protective shelters would not work on long-duration space journeys due to the drip of energized particles, thought to be as harmful as large solar storms.

"The nice thing is that magnet technology is really quite evolved here on Earth," says Dr. Mike Hapgood, from the Didcot-based research centre. The question is can you take it into space?"

A team from Rutherford-Appleton plans to build an artificial magnetosphere in the laboratory. They would eventually like to fly a test satellite which would test the technology in space.

According to Clemson University bioengineer Dr. Ted Bateman, astronauts who were on the International Space Station and cancer patients receiving radiation therapy back here on Earth suffer in common the same bone loss. As a result, both groups are more likely to develop fractures compared to the general population. It is an easy connection to make when considering cancer patients receiving radiation as part of cancer treatments experience a decrease in bone density and bone loss that can lead to easy fractures as a result of exposure to radiation, but how did the astronauts come to suffer the same type of bone loss? While in space, the astronauts experienced microgravity and were exposed to radiation from cosmic and solar sources.

"Recent exams of astronauts who were on the International Space Station showed signs of bone loss in the neck and vertebrae. Even five years after returning to Earth, they have not completely recovered from this loss," stated Dr. Bateman.

Conducting studies at Clemson University and the Kennedy Space Center, Osteoporosis Biomechanics Lab researchers exposed mice to replicated solar flares and clinical radiation exposure, to measure bone loss in mice, in the hopes that they can develop effective therapies for astronauts scheduled to spent time in space and for cancer patients receiving radiation therapy to fight cancer.

The National Cancer Institute provides a Radiation Therapy for Cancer: Questions and Answers fact sheet that explains radiation therapy, also called radiotherapy, x-ray therapy, or irradiation as using a type of energy called ionizing radiation to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors. They also offer Radiation Therapy and You: A Guide to Self-Help During Cancer Treatment as an educational publication for cancer patients who will be receiving radiation therapy.

To read more about Osteoporosis Biomechanics Lab and Dr. Bateman, go here.