Comparing this to Star Trek has proved irresistable to many reporters. The reality is rather more mundane.

This proposed shield, if it works, will deflect small numbers of electrically charged particles.

The Star Trek shield is depicted as something which can deflect light and other electromagnetic radiation (e.g. phasers) and even solid objects. Doing that is beyond the laws of physics as we know them. Well perhaps in the 23rd century it wont be...

Not quite "beyond the laws of physics as we know them" as everything has associate wave length and can, in theory, be reflected, refracted and so on, be it subatomic, microscopic or macroscopic scale. Far far beyond our ability of course, but not in breach of any law of physics.

This sounds more like the 'navigational deflector' used in Star Trek, and not the defensive shields as one of the comments says.

This navigational deflector is theoretically used to prevent very small particles, meteors, space dust and the like from damaging the hull when a ship is travelling at 'warp' speeds. Admittedly they use it for all kinds of psudo-science beams... but it's basic function is still there...

Forget all the comparisons to real or fictional shield technologies, I just want to be the first commander on a NASA ship to give the order "Shields up!"

is actually more than a simple magnetic shield. A magnetic shield can deflect charged particles. But a shield with plazma in it can deflect noncharged particles too, because it has mass in it.

Comparing this to startrek navigational shields is obvious, but if you look at the names nasa choosed for some of their designs, you can see that the engineers there are big startrek fans too. (and some of these startrek based designs actually work, for example the ion drive of the ds-1)

Even if it doesnt work at first, someone will be able to invert the polarity and save the day.

Someone has mentioned that we can't deflect material objects with a shield and we will need a new physics, well here is one. Take electro-magnetic and add spin. A bulge of water moving on a flat pond is quite common, imagine if all matter is made of electro-magnetic-spin (EMS) from the flat EMS vacuum as we move. Rubbish of course there is no such thing as a spin field, .... but then they said that about electric and magnetic fields a couple of hundred years ago. Fields are of course concepts, so you could say we live in a conceptual multi-verse but if you are made of the same stuff you see it as real, .... no need for "mass" appearing from nowhere, inertia is simply seen as recreation as a thing moves (and so inertia can be overcome) and gravity is seen simply as minimisation of information, things are kept together because mirroring with other objects makes it easier for the vacuum to recreate them as the planet moves, the earth follows a minimum information path in space as do the other planets and we see only one frequency of matter because that is all our genes allow us to see. A conceptual multiverse has no size as we understand it so entangled particles (actually knots of EMS field) are linked conceptually and so unlink instantly. The multiverse consists of ongoing EMS patterns and we create this thing called Time in our heads to account for the ongoing patterns we see. Bottom line is a material shield is possible, we can project matter to anywhere once we understand it is only a concept. Oh and E=1/2 MC2 by this idea as light is part of the whole and every other energy storage equation has the half at the front, ...... Einstein was wrong, he knew nothing of the mirroring that made all of this possible. Strange as it may seem we have an infinity of universes for one half of the information content of one universe as every universe interacts with every other one. Of course such ideas explain Pons and Fleishman, as matter unwinding (bubbling liquids shield against spin, they had boiling water), and Laithwaites flywheels that get lighter, losses in the flywheel bearings (heat is seen as disinformation) off set the balance losses our arms muscles formerly had to provide, ..... add a flash of blue light with a mirror underneath and away we go, warp drive. Can we copy things using EMS devices? Well take water and shake it, highly polar molecule, shaked to give magnetic field and crucially bubbles, produces copies of molecules sometimes (homeopathy method) but perhaps a 3D ellipsoid mirror sitting with one half submerged in a bubbling liquid with something at one focus and nothing at the other may allow that something to be copied by the vacuum to the other empty foci so reproducing the Star Trek food units (using an EMS mirror in other words). A joke? Maybe not. Makes more sense than dark matter any day of the week.

I'll have a pint of whatever he's on......

You mean a couple of lines of whatever he's on, don't you?