Re:Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up...
by cletus on Tuesday September 14, 2021 @01:21PM
(#28527865)
First, a lot of space debris is small. I'm talking like flecks of paint. That's an issue at high speed and this has hit the ISS [1].
Obviously there's the conservation of momentum to deal with. That fleck of paint has a decent amount of momentum but that's fairly easily absorbed by a couple of tons of material fixed to an otherwise rigid body.
You'd probably attach it via cables and if, somehow, enough momentum was delivered to that "paddle" that it would tear off the cables would just let it go.
If the paddle is fixed to the ring and is let go, it's just going to fall to Earth even with any added momentum, in which case it'll burn up in the atmosphere.
The more dangerous debris is larger stuff. Like there are dead parts of rockets, even smaller stuff like bolts. These pose extra challenges but a lot of the same principles apply.
Re:Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up...
by deelowe on Tuesday September 14, 2021 @02:34PM
(#28528890)
I thought larger parts aren't as big of an issue in the majority of cases as most orbits aren't stable and they'll eventually fall to earth or be ejected into outer space.
Obviously there's the conservation of momentum to deal with. That fleck of paint has a decent amount of momentum but that's fairly easily absorbed by a couple of tons of material fixed to an otherwise rigid body.
You'd probably attach it via cables and if, somehow, enough momentum was delivered to that "paddle" that it would tear off the cables would just let it go.
If the paddle is fixed to the ring and is let go, it's just going to fall to Earth even with any added momentum, in which case it'll burn up in the atmosphere.
The more dangerous debris is larger stuff. Like there are dead parts of rockets, even smaller stuff like bolts. These pose extra challenges but a lot of the same principles apply.
[1]: https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0513/Space-debris-dan....