Thanks Frazer :) [Tatooine] Can we terraform the Moon is my fave Q&A, I did not know it was possible for The Moon to hold an atmosphere...I learn something new everyday.

Going back to the topic of colonizing Mars again. I think it is more likely that we will create large space habitats around moons or planets out in our solar system that are close to something that can be mined, and larger colony might be eventually built on a strategic moon with very little gravity...all in the name of science and mining. Perhaps some people will go to these places as tourists eventually. All visits to these places will be short term, because there's no place like home as they say.

Coruscant. Strong question, stronger answer! Some of the things the Ancients (like Eratosthenes) worked on (like the world being round), will always stand. Missing gravity in the standard model? Maybe or maybe not.

Tatooine, I wanna see a green moon :) Incidentally, according to a PSYC course I took once, we best remember the first and last items on a list - can you see a bias in your votes?

@realzachfluke1

3 ай бұрын

👀👀

The Yavin question made me think of a 1979 Andy Griffith TV movie called Salvage. In the movie, Andy owns a junkyard and teams with a failed astronaut and a woman that developed an extremely powerful but extremely unstable explosive/rocket fuel. They build and launch their rocket on a trip to the Moon to recover all the abandoned "junk" left by the Apollo astronauts. I was 11 when it aired and really enjoyed it. It was turned into a series called Salvage 1 but was cancelled with only 16 of its 20 episodes having aired. Salvage 1 is yet another TV show from my childhood that I have tried to find a way to watch as as an adult. But the problem, as I understand it, is that while it wouldn't cost much to (physically) offer failed shows from the 70s or 80s to a streaming service, the effort to secure contract releases from all the credited actors and musicians is not deemed to be worth it. Nobody ever considered home video releases at the time these contracts were negotiated, much less video on demand/streaming. But it seems a waste to just leave them sitting in a vault somewhere. Eventually, those shows will move in to the public domain. But one, I doubt I will live that long and two, them being in the public domain will hardly incentivize studios to release them. Maybe the studios could negotiate a standard deal with SAG-AFTRA and the union representing TV musicians that would apply to any TV show or TV movie that aired prior to 1990 and didn't have existing streaming deals. That wouldn't disturb deals already negotiated for more popular shows while providing fair compensation for artists and their heirs. Studios could then release most of their back catalogs and generate revenue they wouldn't otherwise receive. The unions could hold payments for artists/heirs that can't be located. It might require a law from Congress to make that arrangement legal, but I am not sure if anyone would be against such a law. BTW, I think a low quality VHS recording of Salvage is available on KZread. I appreciate both the uploaders for making movies and shows like this available and the studios that own the rights not to issue strikes.

@JohnDlugosz

Жыл бұрын

I liked that movie. Many of the TV show episodes were tied to current events -- I wonder how they would be seen today?

@TheWadetube

Жыл бұрын

I remember that show. They were going to use an old cement mixer for the command module cockpit. Take off slowly to reach orbit, which is a mistake. I remember Andy talking to a buyer of a world war 2 fighter seat with a bullet hole in it.... it didn't have one so after he hung up he shot the thing with a 45. Funny.

So, follow-up question to the Mars colonization question: I agree with your assessment, but what is your thoughts on the prevalence of O'Neill Cylinder (or similar) as a proxy for terrestrial colonization? I've always assumed it will be far more likely given the engineering complexities are orders of magnitude less.

Tatooine Terraforming the moon is something that I think of whenever I see it in the sky.

Have been a sub for a long time and I'm still occasionally surprised by how good your video looks and how good your audio sounds. Thanks for the quality! Happy New Year, Fraser

Tatooine gets my vote. Never even considered it before. Now it seems like a no-brainer!

Another thing about all our probes and rovers and why we would want to recover them. They have been exposed to harsh/exotic environments, studying how they have degraded is valuable materials research.

19:31 fully agree. for me, a very amateur astro-fan, stars in very dark places are overwhelming in numbers - thus I believe constellations were created when people start noticing patterns during not that clear nights, when there are not many stars visible

Coruscant. Your answer is spot on. Thanks for all that you do.

New follower and future amateur astronomer. You’re an inspiration

Ad Tatooine: Place Lunar colony at South Polar Aitken basin and you can have eternal sunlight for solar panels and green houses, and frozen water for water(!), oxygen for breathing and fuel (hydrogen and oxygen), close at hand! Build into the side if the crater and you are radiation shielded but can still have windows 🙂

@SamtheIrishexan

Жыл бұрын

Solar will be useless now that we have figured out fusion that takes less energy to do than it creates, 1.5x more. Once engineered at scale, which will be rapid now that the science is out, we have essentially figured out unlimited energy so long as we have a good supply of Deuterium and Helium 3

@SamtheIrishexan

Жыл бұрын

I do dig the idea of hobbit hole housing though!

@MTG69

Жыл бұрын

@@SamtheIrishexan can we name it the Shire Lunar Base?

@astroartie1872

Жыл бұрын

@@SamtheIrishexan No. The 1.5 times more is how much energy the lasers put in vs. the fusion energy out. BUT: Charging the laser consumed "well above 400 megajoules"! That is 327 times more energy spent, than energy gained from fusion. Also, a monolithic energy plant on the Moon, means you have a very singular point of failure which would be catastrophic = A very bad idea!

@SamtheIrishexan

Жыл бұрын

@@astroartie1872 the national ignition facility on Dec 13th announced the core released more energy than was put in. I understand that we wont have the reactors tomorrow, but that is one of the last hurdles, now just engineering it at scale.

Bespin. Without any doubt. Thanks for your answers.

Since the Oort Cloud theoretically extends all the way to the "edge" of our solar system, is it possible that objects from _our_ Oort Cloud could possibly be drawn towards, or even impact, exoplanets in _neighboring_ star systems (like Alpha Centari)? Also, do our neighboring star systems have their _own_ "Oort" Clouds that interact with ours at the dividing line between our two systems?

@DavidTremblay

Жыл бұрын

Interested par the answers to that

@mertc8050

Жыл бұрын

Only possible if and only if another star with planets go trough oort cloud which happens often in astronamical terms

@robertnewhart3547

Жыл бұрын

Neighboring oort clouds provide a collective pull but the neighboring star is the culprit in any bodies being perturbed.

Great show! Thanks for breaking it down for the rest of us.

I think the best definition of "down" is just the direction towards the center of gravity of whatever the dominant object you're orbiting is. So it's subjective depending on where you are, but it's still down. Like orbiting is falling "down" but just moving so fast laterally that you never hit the ground, but gravity is still pulling you towards it. It's more that for humans in space, there might as well be no up or down because either one is the same as the other, so that's the main reason behind saying there's no up or down in space.

Fraser's Canadarm jokes never fail to get a good laugh out of me, I love 'em hahaha

Your putting out a ton of great content!

@spaaaaace8952

Жыл бұрын

You're*

Coruscant - More for the answer than the question. Great channel, keep up the good work

Yay! Fraser got the right shoulder. :)

How long would JWST still be useful if it drifted away from its Lagrange point?

@petevenuti7355

Жыл бұрын

Well , if it were out of fuel, it wouldn't be long before the instrumentation couldn't be kept in the shade and the important things that make it useful get burned up...that might likely happen before it gets far from it's current position... I am not a NASA engineer, I couldn't even guess at how long though. I'm more curious on the odds on where it might end up! It's at a balance between orbit of earth/moon and interplanetary.. what's its most likely trajectory when it does drift? Second most likely? Worst case? Any fun orbits?

I love these!

Tatooine! Now regarding settling on Mars, I think VR/AR tech is evolving fast enough that if you miss trees and wind on Mars, you'll be able to experience it. Say you're bored of the baren landscape by day 90, then you tell you built in assistant to augment the scenery through your visor with whatever you want while leaving reality intact enough for carrying out the work. You'll also be able to enjoy experiences of anything on Earth with a VR suit inside the habitat that will be real enough to fool your senses. You may need to get a Neuralink implant, but that also likely won't be a big deal by then. 🤷

@spacefan4ever

Жыл бұрын

What you described will happen for sure. But terraforming and AR/VR are not mutually exclusive.

absolutely love these videos, nice to have a place for reliable information =P

@benfadely9583

Жыл бұрын

Well, reliable enough to stick with the mainstream of scientific thought anyway... 🥴

@smeeself

Жыл бұрын

@@benfadely9583 sigh

@Highanxiety18

Жыл бұрын

tinfoil hats are allowed provided you can prove they are worth the effort of bringing into the room, lol.

@benfadely9583

Жыл бұрын

Mine receives the 11th harmonic!! 🤔😂🤣🤯 LMAO

@benfadely9583

Жыл бұрын

kzread.info/dash/bejne/fZqr3KqRl7HgmMY.html

Allright, a new Fraser Cain video! 😃🥳

Happy holidays fellow Canadian brother!!! ❤

hoth the universe is so vast it really is inconceivable.

You're question shows are my favourite. One of the only videos on KZread that I always watch till the end

@robertnewhart3547

Жыл бұрын

"You are question shows are my favorite"? What does that mean?

@TheMasterashton

Жыл бұрын

@@robertnewhart3547 your never going to know

@realzachfluke1

3 ай бұрын

​@@TheMasterashton lol

Always a good watch. Bespin

Is there a way i can vote for all the questions? Great video

Thanks!

5:29 Sure, Fraser! I'm sure when I look down below, the referenced link will definitely, _actually_ be listed in the show notes... right?? I've been watching this channel for far too many years to be fooled by you again! You're not getting me this time! 🤣🤣🤣

Hoth segment, how does the minimum size of the universe compare to where we might expect the event horizon for the universe?

When we go back to the moon should the astronauts visit the equipment left behind by the Apollo missions? Would the buggy still work?

Question about the twin paradox: If Alice remains on Earth, always experiencing the same acceleration (10 m/s²), and Bob goes on a trip, but his ship always maintain the same acceleration (10 m/s²) for the entire trip, holding a speed close to the speed of light for the majority of the time, when Bobs meets Alice again, will be any time dilation between the two?

Tatooine - amazing.

Hoth. Thks for the great content

Tatooine, was the best!

Large space mirrors could probably mitigate that 30 day/night cycle somewhat.

Tatooine! I would love to look up and see a green and blue marble in the sky.

Wow, if I take the ideas I found so far on your channel, giving the moon a permanent atmosphere is not quite that difficult with technologies we soon have: * Build a magnetosphere generator on the moon (might be something like a big cable around the moon or something similar) * Build ships to sail on the solar wind to the comets (difficulty: braking at the orbit of the comet)... * ... and bring them with water, nitrogen and oxygen to the moon to rain them down there (the difficulty of again braking at the moon's orbit)

@CarFreeSegnitz

Жыл бұрын

We don’t need to bring oxygen to the Moon. Oxygen is already 40% of the mass of our Moon. We do need the industry to liberate oxygen from the minerals it’s bound to. Hydrogen is being constantly delivered to the Moon on the solar wind. What the Moon lacks is nitrogen. Probably best addressed by hauling in ammonia ice from the outer solar system.

@burkhardstackelberg1203

Жыл бұрын

@@CarFreeSegnitz Good to know that we have most materials already in place. Should we go with an atmosphere 20% the density of Earth's, it also could be a pure oxygen atmosphere (while we still would lack nitrogen for the plants, though)

I had a book from the 60's about the future that showed underwater cities, because living underwater is what we will want to do in the future.

@seditt5146

Жыл бұрын

There is way more space underwater than people realize meaning as population grows it may seem like a more and more viable option. Far more space than we currently have land and we are not even close to using up all the landmass despite what most people seem to think. We have room to fit a trillion or more people on Earth if we desire. Most people feel that number is absurd however we have not even begun touching the natural resources the Earth has nor have we come close to using up the space the Earth has meaning we have more than enough room for such a population.

@cjay2

Жыл бұрын

Who's the 'we' that you're referring to?

@cjay2

Жыл бұрын

@@seditt5146 Because more people is always better.

@joaodecarvalho7012

Жыл бұрын

@@cjay2 We are the humans.

@seditt5146

Жыл бұрын

@@cjay2 "We", you know as in, the human race, duh... and yes, more people are better clearly evident by how the quality of life has grossly increase over the past century or so. The more people the greater the chance of revolutionary thinkers and those people are capable of making advancements which can support millions with their work alone. The technological advancements from Einstein work has allowed for our population to grow rapidly, mortality has improved and our lives are so cushy we can sit here and bitch about the human race from the comfort of your parents basemrnt.

Hey Fraser. I just wanted to say your videos are spectacular. If you're looking for an idea for a new video, I'm not sure but I would imagine that a lot of people would very much enjoy watching a video about building a substantial moon from asteroid material for mars to help warm the core.

28:13 canada - we put arms on everything

Tatooine! (am I doing this right?) Why can we give a planet (or moon) an atmosphere but not a magnetosphere? Can't we just build a really big magnetic field?

Tatooine was my favorite answer. I didn't know that the gas would generally stick around the lower-gravity moon, but now I'm confused by the whole "Jean's Escape Velocity" thing. I interpreted it as "If the gas molecule is moving faster than the escape velocity of the gravitational body it's on, then it will tend to escape". This would imply that solar heating would likely strip the moon's atmosphere, if it were within the limits of an unprotected human.

Yay! Fraser, could we destabilize orbits in our attempts to terraform celestial bodies?

I think the point is that no matter what insane things we discover in the future, revolutionary things, or even if we become able to control all of physics' laws as we want to, our current science doesn't stop being science. Our current models, despite how imperfect they are, are still the ones that fit best with our observations, and are researched to the best of our current abilities. That's science. Dalton's model for the atom didn't stop being scientific, it just became outdated as new facts were learned.

Tatooine We can't even seem to terraform the earth back into something less dangerous, like prior to the industrial revolution levels of pollution and greenhouse gases. Not having to travel off world should save at least a few billion on the project.

Awesome show Fraser! My question is regarding stellar motion and momentum. When we see stars in a galaxy rotating around the (possible) central SMBH, they largely appear to rotate in the same direction. Where did their momentum come from? Assuming all the gas to form the stars started out largely randomly moving - where are the 'balancing' reverse motion stars?

I already think a lot of current science is provably mumbo jumbo but we've already had this discussion. Carry on sir.

4:05 - While using genetic engineering to create plants that can cope with extended periods of darkness is an option, why not just borrow a page from Isaac Arthur's playbook and make solar shade / reflector satellites? In that way, we introduce less questions into the scenario, and we can control the light cycle to whatever we desire.

Basically Terra forming, interstellar travel and other big problems in space need much bigger power supplies than we have. I think that is a doable problem over time. Not a short time but who knows? All of a sudden, someone figures out a great source of anti matter...find it, produce it, whatever, the main thing is you have access to it. As long as you don't blow up Earth you would then have a much larger source of power than we have ever had. Possibilities of what we can do go to a new level. Other choice is we never go out of the solar system and just become good at using everything we have access to.

Yavin. I seriously want your quote on a t-shirt: "Mars sucks!" It's fn awesome. From Rory in Toronto

Bespin!

Yavin! I want a total recall vacation!

Hoth Here's an interesting question : Based on the current understanding of the universe, could we, in theory, see past iterations of our Galaxy or even see the beginning of the Milky Way? If so, how would we be able to determine that is indeed our Galaxy and some other Galaxy. Consider the time light is observable. For example, a star is 10 light-years away, and we are observing the star as it was 10 years ago, not as it is today.

hi fraser, many years ago i questioned how you used further and farther interchangeably and to be honest i was just being a silly pedant, but virtually every episode after that i've noticed you almost make a point of using them in their intended sense, so much so its almost like they are emphasised each time. My question is, is this coincidence or did i have an impact on you all those years ago?

Isaac Asimov's book The Relativity Of Wrong makes the case that modern science has the correct major theories about how the universe works. These theories can be refined but not overthrown.

Don’t forget about the vibrations that the moon produces that wouldn’t be pleasant for the human ear if something crashes into the moon or even trying to mine there it will ring for weeks since the moon is hollow. So turning that into growing plants is just not possible unless you mobilized your own farm above ground.

Naboo, because it's a major plot point in 'Godzilla vs Guiron'.

Hey Fraser! Love your contents as always. My question is, is it possible for a star to have rings??

Up is away from gravity, Down is towards gravity. Up and down are only directions that make sense in a strong gravity well.

Tatooine!!!!

Dagobah: the idea that we will one day be able to build structures around these artefacts, to celebrate and protect them is simultaneously so ostentatious and humbling. It's actually quite emotional too, to think that one day, somebody will get to put their hand on the surface of these landers, to physically connect with that history and the hopes and trials and successes that accompanied them; that one day some martian colonist will get to have a Picard-meets-Phoenix moment with Pathfinder or Insight or Opportunity, even if they have to wear a full EV suit to do it.

Regarding the 'size' of the universe, I am surprised that no one has considered that the universe is in fact a Klein bottle set within a tesseract. This would take care of a lot of issues regarding both macro and micro (quantum) physics.

Why not orbit mirros for lighting, lagrange radiation shield, and mineral already there? It can actually be done toady or within the next 10 or so if your creative enough.

kamino We got to see a magnitude lower event when comet Shoemaker fell into Jupiter in '94, can't believe it's been 30 years now, wow.

Could you come up with a stable multiple planet configuration where every planet is in the L4 and L5 on the next and last planet, but all share the same orbital distance from the star.

Best question: Hoth. It was about the size & shape of the universe.

@ Fraser Hi mate. This is in relation to engineering an atmosphere on the Moon and all questions assume that we're also able to create a magnetic field for the Moon - Would we need to deliver MORE gas to deal with the lower gravity of the Moon? I mean, a lower gravity would lead to a gas of 'x' volume having a lower density and taking up a greater volume on the moon. Lower density would equate to a lower atmospheric pressure, yes? To achieve a desired pressure, we'd need to have more gas for a given volume, than we would on Earth, right? How much more? If we were doing this on Earth, 1 cubic meter of space contains 44.64 mol. of gas and since each mol. is 22.4 litres, we'd need 1,000 moles of gas for 1 cubic meter. 1 cubic meter = 1,000 litres, so we could just say that on Earth, 1 litre of volume contains 1 mole of gas. What would this be on the Moon? I'm certain it would be different, I just can't work out how different... Also, is there a practical limit to how much gas can be accommodated/ accumulated on the Moon? At some point, the volume a given gas occupies will be so great/ so far from the surface, that the Moon's gravity will have difficulty holding on to it. But then again, Venus doesn't have a particularly high gravity and yet it holds on to over 90 atmospheres of pressure worth of gases. Does that mean that we could "overfill" the moon? Could we accidentally end up with an atmospheric pressure of 10 atm on the moon? Or 20? Or 100, even? Or do you think the pressure would max out at around 10 atmospheres, with excess gases being swept off into the ether?

Tatooine !

Q: on Earth, you can just walk down a stream, river or beach, turn over a rock and find a fossil of ancient sea life. Rovers on Mars have been looking at rocks for decades and have found nothing like that. And considering the surface of Mars is really old, older than most of Earth's surface (because of geological activity) doesn't that suggest multicellular life likely never evolved on Mars?

If we are traveling at a velocity close to the speed of light relative to the rest of the universe (say traveling to Alpha Centauri) would the microwave background radiation be redshifted behind us and blue-shifted ahead of us? And does this mean that there actually is a preferred inertial reference frame in our universe?

@JohnDlugosz

Жыл бұрын

Yes, the CMB defines a reference frame that everyone -- even in different galaxies -- can agree on as being the same. And yes, any observer can measure his velocity relative to this frame. In our own case, due to the movement of the Earth, we see a "dipole" in the raw data. But, this has been corrected in most presentations/visualizations we see.

can the oumuamua be really a intersteller spacecraft, and what if every object is just the peaks and valleys of a 4d hypersphere just like taking a 2d slice of earths surface, is the orbit of planets slowly increasing due to the solar radiation

Wow, that is awesome about terraforming the Moon. Would power stations in a line making a powered ring around the Moon give it a magnetosphere? And the plant cycles could be taken care of by charging batteries on sunny days and running lights with them on sunless days. We already have solar-powered grow lights.

I believe that colonzing Mars wouldn't necessarily suck but it would suck for most people. This is a question about finding the kind of people that would like to live like that. There are people that have adapted to live in extreme environments even here in Earth, even with primitive technologies so I believe it can be done.

In the far future when fusion based energy is no longer 20 years away what space based things could we do with it and is there a next type of energy source to look for after fusion?

What's this Solenoid Loop project proposed for Mars to give it an artificial magnetic field? Would that be applicable on Luna?

I see a lot of things written about terraforming moons, planets, even about Dyson spheres on how we would be able in the future to do this and that, and how theoretically is possible, probable, or even very close. Thing is, I think people have spent too much time reading sci-fi books and watching movies, and too little time walking outside in the "real world". We're not even able to take away 0.1% of CO2 out of the earth's atmosphere and we want to get a whole planet a whole new atmosphere and perfectly manipulate and fine tune it? 🤦🏻‍♂

Fraser, would you like to tell us more about JUICE mission that is expected to be launched in 2023? Do you think it will happen this year and what discoveries we may get? thanks

Is there a meaningful difference between something going beyond the event horizon of a blackhole and going beyond the edge of the observable universe?

So, with adding water, and the components of air to the surface of the moon we could create an atmosphere there. What about atmospheric pressure? Yes there might be an atmosphere there but could it get up to the right pressure? Would the gravity on the moon play a part in creating or maintaining pressure? What about temperature? Temperature and Pressure are directly related right? Temperature would vary drastically on each side of the moon right? I wonder if that difference could create a lot of wind in that atmosphere? If so, that dusty moon regolith might be blowing everywhere?

At sea and in the air, you have green and red navigation lights on starboard and port sides of the vessel. This makes sense, as there is also up and down on Earth. But why do you have the same navigation lights on spacecraft? Shouldn't you have something extra, to let the lights give your heading to others seeing your craft?

Tatooine - That part about the moon was a fascinating thought experiment - I never even considered terra-formation. If we could add several artificial magnetos (spinning metallic asteroids?) at the Earth-Moon LaGrange points such that one would always be on the sunlit side - probably requiring constant correction of some sort, we could create an analogue for a magnetosphere. Then (very gently :) ) direct comets and icy asteroids into the moon over hundreds or thousands of years - creating a ~habitable place faster than we could terraform Mars. Without the sun stripping away gasses, a proto-atmosphere could be created as more material would sublimate from the existing regolith to add to the atmospheric composition. Question is, would the deflected solar particles expose the earth to significantly higher radiation while the moon was in front of the earth in relation to the sun, or simply be deflected by the earths own magnetosphere as usual?

Regarding adding an atmosphere to the moon, could it be more efficient to use something like a Nicoll Dyson Beam to bake the oxygen out of the moon rocks? I'm not seeing the codes you're referring to at 4:32. Technically, there is a down in space, but it's relative to the dominant source of gravity. For example, down in our solar system would be toward the sun. Down in the galaxy would be the central black hole, Sagitearious A.

How much faster would voyager be going if it had an ionic drive firing this whole time? Have either of them traveled a light day yet?

Question: Tiny Measurements in Infinite Space. In one of the Q and As you mentioned that the moon is moving away from earth at 4cm per year and Titan is moving away from Saturn at 11 cm per year. I wish to know scientists are able to make such tiny measurements in the vast space? 4cm Seems nothing compared to the distance of moon from earth! Also, how other accurate space measurements are made to such incredible precision? Thanks. Vote: Coruscant

Hoth!😍

"it would be a situation"

I think the moon could generate it's own magnetosphere. It still has molten hot center. So you just need to get it spinning faster.

Up and down are just like left and right. Just directions relative to you.

Yavin - I love it when Fraser busts people's Mars colonization fantasy balloons. I don't mind the Star Wars planet names at all, but maybe in the new year we can get some new planets? Star Trek has a bunch too! Andoria, Bajor, Betazed, Cardassia, Denobula, Ferenginar, Gothos, Iconia, Khitomer, Kronos/Qo'nos, Medusa, Nepenthe, Organia, Orion, Risa, Romulus, Tellar, Trill, Vulcan, Zetar

@dave4882

Жыл бұрын

Don't forget Ceti Alpha VI. But I'm good with planets from many different "universes". Krypton, and Asgard come to mind quickly.

You mentioned that the moon has no magnetosphere in the answer to your first question - could make one? Enough to cover a dome where people live and work?

#Tatooine Before we even attempt to terraform the moon and Mars, would it not be more logical to try to terraform something much closer like the Sahara Desert and then Antartica?

@australien6611

Жыл бұрын

"Terraforming" is pure sci-fi/fantasy , leaning heavily towards fantasy. Your point is spot on, we cant control anything here let alone anywhere else

Referring to the Kamino question, would the increased Mass of the sun screw up the orbits of the planets?

Tatooine , how would one create a magnetosphere, how much energy would a planet sized one require? And isn't the tidal forces of having a unusually large Moon that allows the Earth to keep a liquid enough core to have magnetic field? Isn't this almost a requirement for life and should be considered when looking at exoplanets?

Is there a way with current or near-future technology to create an energy shield around our space craft? There may not be a need now, but maybe space junk will be such a nuisance or space pirates or just general safety concerns.