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Aussie Lasers To Stop Satellite Collisions, Death
bennyboy64 writes "An Australian company is developing a laser tracking system that will help prevent collisions between satellites and space debris, ZDNet reports. 'The trouble is it's [debris] in orbit and travelling at orbital speeds, which means that it is travelling at about 30,000 kilometres an hour," said the CEO of the Australian company. 'If even a tiny little piece runs into a satellite it'll destroy it or punch a hole through a person if they're out there space walking.'"
The Australians have a laser than can stop death? Now that is news I can use! Where can I get one?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Wow, sharks with frickin' laser beams are in space, saving humanity from impending doom!
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
Electro Optic Systems' laser technology, with the help of a federal government grant, will enable the Mount Stromlo observatory in Canberra to track space junk and sell the data it collects to satellite owners and companies like NASA.
Reading the summary I had hopes they had a laser rocket thing worked out: you heat the leading edge of a bit of space junk. Gas comes off that side and pushes the fragment backwards so it re-enters the atmosphere. But no. Its just a better way to detect the particles.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Sounds like the old Asteroids game. If they're looking for volunteers, I'd be happy to put my years of experience to good use.
Truth, Justice. Or the American Way.
On an off note, how much space debris would be needed to protect ourselves from potential alien invasions? (or at least convince aliens that our society is too backwards to consider conquering)
Are they just making shit up or what? 30,000 mph is relative to the ground. Anything orbiting with be near that speed, including the space men. Someone tell me I'm wrong, and please tell me why. It seems to me the relative velocities would be small.
and form "Islands in the Sky"?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Sure, 30,000 mph is relative to the ground. The velocity of a piece of space junk relative to an astronaut could well be 60,000 mph if it's going the other way round. Even if both junk and astronaut are orbiting west-to-east, they could be on divergent ellipses. So collision speeds could go anywhere from 0 to 60,000 mph. Heck, I'm pretty sure that a collision at a velocity difference of "just" 1,000 mph would hurt.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
"track space junk and sell the data it collects to satellite owners and companies like NASA"
So, basically, it doesn't *do* anything. They use it like...oh, a telescope or something, and then *sell* their observations.
Yippee. Shouldn't a project funded by federal grants not be eligible to sell their findings but be required to provide them freely to the public? Seems a little wrong to me.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
What, no tags with reference to sharks or pewpewpew? Slashdot, you're slipping!
/pewpewpew
Oz is going to blast hundreds of thousands of orbiting bit into hundreds of millions of bits?
Then what? Duck tape?
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Sounds like a Planet ES story to me.
in which case, by all means, put an end to space junk before we need to go out there to collect it ourselves at those speeds.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Do not look down to Australia with the remaining space-based telescope.
I had no idea ZDNet still existed.
It is not tracking that is the problem. USSTRATCOM (formerly NORAD) tracks everything in LEO from decimeter size, plus a lot smaller stuff.
The real bottleneck is in the computer power to:
1) sort out which detections concern the same object;
2)calculate all the potential risk situations for these thousands of objects
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem delendam esse
'The trouble is it's [debris] in orbit and travelling at orbital speeds, which means that it is travelling at about 30,000 kilometres an hour," said the CEO of the Australian company. 'If even a tiny little piece runs into a satellite it'll destroy it or punch a hole through a person if they're out there space walking.'
Umm, maybe I'm not recalling middleschool science classes correctly - but when you're "space walking" you're ALSO moving at "orbital speeds"
So - how would the space debris punch a hole through a person if they were space walking? Sure, if it's traveling in a different direction it *might* - but still: the astronaut is moving at the same speed as the shuttle as the satellite they're deploying/fixing
antipaucity
Very poor wording in that article / title there. Our Ozzian brethren aren't gonna prevent anything.
'The trouble is it's [debris] in orbit and travelling at orbital speeds, which means that it is travelling at about 30,000 kilometres an hour," said the CEO of the Australian company. 'If even a tiny little piece runs into a satellite it'll destroy it or punch a hole through a person if they're out there space walking.'
Umm, maybe I'm not recalling middleschool science classes correctly - but when you're "space walking" you're ALSO moving at "orbital speeds"
So - how would the space debris punch a hole through a person if they were space walking? Sure, if it's traveling in a different direction it *might* - but still: the astronaut is moving at the same speed as the shuttle as the satellite they're deploying/fixing
Debris can be moving in any random orbit. Consider the failed deployments, broken-off or detached bits and the initial force which set the debris into motion.
Yet Socrates himself is particularly missed.
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.
Why not put several large chunks of Silly Putty in space to sweep up the space debris? You could even put it in orbit in front of the object you wish to protect and then track the silly putty, since as things impact it its trajectory would change.