DescentBB

A view of the Earth, showing the objects in Earth's orbit that NASA is tracking.

http://www.wftv.com/slideshow/2691965/d ... 8&taf=orlc

Seems like a lot at first glance, but then you have to realize each dot is dozens - hundreds of miles apart.

Yea, but that's only the stuff they can detect from the ground. There's a lot of really small stuff whipping around they can't detect that's traveling at high velocity, which can really do significant or catastrophic damage to a satellite, the space station or other manned vehicle. Space vacuum cleaner anyone?

I think that they would have to use a blower then.

If you can get a paint chip going fast enough, it can kill someone. Fear my high speed paint chips of death!

You know, in the Star Trek universe ... the ships are equipped with a deflector dish which emanates a field ahead of the ship that deflects foreign objects out of the way of the ship. Think we might be needing such stuff.

tunnelcat wrote:There's a lot of really small stuff whipping around they can't detect that's traveling at high velocity.

Small (low-mass) stuff in orbit travels roughly the same speed as bigger stuff, because gravitational acceleration is independent of mass. If the small stuff is going too much faster, it wouldn't stay in orbit.

That said, those orbital speeds are still very fast.

tunnelcat wrote:Space vacuum cleaner anyone?

LOL, "a vacuum that works even in the vacuum of space!"

Foil wrote:

tunnelcat wrote:Space vacuum cleaner anyone?

LOL, "a vacuum that works even in the vacuum of space!"

Space fishing net? Oh! There's no fish in space!

Foil wrote:Small (low-mass) stuff in orbit travels roughly the same speed as bigger stuff, because gravitational acceleration is independent of mass. If the small stuff is going too much faster, it wouldn't stay in orbit.

That said, those orbital speeds are still very fast.

Especially if you ended up with debris orbiting in the opposite direction as your spacecraft.

Foil wrote:

tunnelcat wrote:There's a lot of really small stuff whipping around they can't detect that's traveling at high velocity.

Small (low-mass) stuff in orbit travels roughly the same speed as bigger stuff, because gravitational acceleration is independent of mass. If the small stuff is going too much faster, it wouldn't stay in orbit.

That said, those orbital speeds are still very fast.

Oops, I meant to say is that all sizes of orbiting debris, even the smallest undetectable stuff, is traveling at high velocity, so even something as small as a paint chip or flake of metal could severely damage anything it hits. The European Retrievable Carrier 'Eureca' from ESTEC specifically studied that one:

Micrometeoroids and Space Debris

tunnelcat wrote:Space vacuum cleaner anyone?

Foil wrote:LOL, "a vacuum that works even in the vacuum of space!"

Just a metaphor, hee, hee! How about 'space sticky traps' or 'particle vaporizing zapper nets'? (I'm thinking along bug catcher lines here)