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US Lab Developing Technology For Space Traffic Control
coondoggie writes "Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory say they have tested technology that could eventually help them monitor and control space traffic. The driving idea behind the project is to help keep satellites and other spacecraft from colliding with each other or with debris in Low Earth Orbit."
They are developing software to get better orbital trajectories. We already HAVE software that manages traffic and orbital collision warnings, but the problem is that our orbital trajectory data is too inaccurate for it to be as helpful as it should be.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
Kind of like airports do with air traffic controllers...
Man, I wonder how aggressive the Space TSA will be?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
he died because he didn't want to spend any more time with Sandra Bullock...
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
they are all names for the same orbital construct
Not quite. Yes, they're all names for the basic idea, but there are several applications of a beanstalk that don't require an elevator. The term "space elevator" applies to a subset of the various suggested technologies. Also, a skyhook doesn't have to be anchored at the base, there have been several suggestions for rotating tethers which dip down into the atmosphere and grab payloads at their nadir.
A couple of decades back I published a paper or two on the "Aresian Well", a beanstalk and pipeline on Mars for exporting volatiles (H2O, CO2) mined at the north polar cap to elsewhere in the inner solar system. Since then we've discovered that water on e.g. the Moon isn't quite so scarce as we thought. That beanstalk was not an elevator, although you could add one.
-- Alastair
Sure, all it takes is a bunch of warp drive fields that can locally modify the universal gravitational constant, cancel inertia, and redirect those missiles back to their point of origin. Geordi LaForge does it all of the time to help prevent violations of various interstellar treaties or major plot points that are otherwise unsolvable.