Kessler-resistant real-life force-fields?
Idle thought at this stage.
The Kessler syndrome (also called the Kessler effect, collisional cascading or ablation cascade), proposed by the NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler in 1978, is a scenario in which the density of objects in low earth orbit (LEO) is high enough that collisions between objects could cause a cascade where each collision generates space debris that increases the likelihood of further collisions.
If all objects in Earth orbit were required to have an electrical charge (all negative, let's say), how strong would that charge have to be to prevent collisions?
Also, how long would they remain charged, given the ionosphere, solar wind, Van Allen belts, etc?
Also, how do you apply charge to space junk already present? Rely on it picking up charge when it collides with new objects? Or is it possible to use an electron gun to charge them from a distance? And if so, what's the trade-off between beam voltage, distance, and maximum charge (presumably shape dependent)?
And if you can apply charge remotely, is this even the best way to deal with them, rather than collecting them all in a large net and de-orbiting them?
Original post timestamp: Mon, 05 Feb 2018 11:16:43 +0000
Categories: Science, SciFi, Technology