Comment by lupusreal
4 days ago
A large mass of Whipple shields.
The "clearing a path" idea is inane, but we do know how to absorb hypervelocity debris impacts while generating a net negative amount of debris.
4 days ago
A large mass of Whipple shields.
The "clearing a path" idea is inane, but we do know how to absorb hypervelocity debris impacts while generating a net negative amount of debris.
Whipple shields fragment, don't they? They slow stuff down enough to not be a hazard to the thing being shielded, but if the goal is mess-reduction I don't see how that will help?
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Whipple-shield-concept_f...
The force of the impact effectively vaporizes part of the shield and the debris. Eventually the shield will be structurally unstable swiss cheese, but that can be modeled and the shield deorbited before it starts to fall apart.