http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/techn...r-cannon-to-destroy-orbital-debris/ar-BBjUyxb
Nice thought, if they can make it work.
Nice thought, if they can make it work.
I have a hard time believing that. I doubt they would like .30 caliber bullets flying at the space station and those are well below 1cm.The claim is that particles <~1cm are not a huge threat.
The web would have to be HUGE in order to have much effect, and it would have to be dense in order to catch the smallest objects of concern, and it would have to be extremely strong to withstand the tremendous impact forces of objects with high differential velocities, and it would have to be able to maintain or restore the shape of the net after each impact, and each impact would affect it's own orbit.this sounds like it would just be making larger numbers of small objects out of the bigger ones.
capturing the debris in a web of light weight, high strength fibers would be a better approach. like a roomba for orbital flight paths.
I don't know what the maximum differential velocities are between a satellite and the space junk it is likely to encounter. But I would certainly think it could be very high, even for objects that are in stable orbits where one is polar and the other equatorial.Yeah, and picture a bullet going 10-100X faster than that bullet!
I think they rely on the self-healing hull to at least close the hole to loss of gases. But it is hard to imagine a 20k mph bullet not passing straight thru the station and the astronauts. Maybe such a particle simply vaporizes and dissipates its energy before it breaches the hull of the station.
Can't remember the actual figures I saw quoted, but orbiting space debris is travelling at some ridiculous speed like 27,000 MPH - the text stated that at that speed, a fleck of paint could cause significant damage to anything it hit.The claim is that particles <~1cm are not a huge threat.