Re:The $11B Webb telescope aims to probe the early universe
by cgriswald on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @02:43PM
(#29489451)
None of the ideas in the sibling comments (to my post) will work, because they ignore the fact that enemies will employ counter-measures which may cause debris to be formed. In the extreme case, a nation's military may decide to deny the area to anyone rather than lose their own access, intentionally creating such a debris field.
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Re:The $11B Webb telescope aims to probe the early universe
by ericbarrett on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @11:49PM
(#29493933)
You'd have to fill the volume of at 25,000 Earths (or more, that's just my napkin math), where orbits aren't stable for more than a year or two, with enough debris to hit something a few meters across. No using explosions to do this either because debris with more than a few m/s aberrant velocity would be ejected from the Lagrange point even faster. Seems unlikely.
Re:The $11B Webb telescope aims to probe the early universe
by cgriswald on Saturday December 11, 2021 @03:05PM
(#29523798)
The entire thing is unlikely. I'm just pointing out that you can't claim space 'cleanly' when your adversaries are actively opposing your claim. To play devil's advocate further though:
As the 'defender' you likely don't need stable orbits. A year or two of denial might buy you what you want. You also don't need to ensure a collision against a single small target, you just need enough debris to make use of the area cost prohibitive in terms of risk.