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You want to fire thousands of bullet size pieces of metal into low earth orbit? Holy Kessler Cascade, Batman!
by pennomi 2y ago
You want to fire thousands of bullet size pieces of metal into low earth orbit? Holy Kessler Cascade, Batman!
- FiatLuxDave 2y agoWhile that's not my intention, if you actually wanted to damage satellites and cause a Kessler Syndrome scenario, it's hard to find a system that would have a bigger bang-for-your-buck. I was rather envisioning a target satellite that is designed to absorb the pellet as an inelastic collision. It would probably resemble something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_body#/media/File:Black_body_realization.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_body#/media/File:Black_b... . Of course, if it didn't work as designed, then it could be a problem. The point was that a high altitude low-mass-per-shot gun system could get mass into orbit with a similar energy cost as a space elevator with significantly less upfront capital cost and no need for miracle materials.