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.'"

Comments

Re:Like radar, but shorter wavelengths

[c0lo]

The question is whether your system can work fast enough to actually capture more particles that way?

This is where the analogy with the TatsLotto serves. Either way: play always you favourite numbers (keep thye beam in the same position) or change them from one game to the other (sweep the sky), the probability to win is the same if you play a single ticket (using a narrow beam).
Granted, if you know a region where is more probable to find what you are looking for, the analogy with Lotto stops. But also exploring only in a certain region will make you prone to miss other debris that may knock down a satellite of your customers.

I reckon that using a slightly divergent beam (even better, a divergence controlled one) would improve the chances better than narrow-beam sky-sweeping method (not that the two methods are exclusive).