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Space

NASA To Build Laser Space Broom For ISS 157

Posted by Hemos from the fun-with-accelerated-light dept.
Andy_R writes: "The BBC is reporting that NASA is to build a laser "broom" that is designed to sweep debris in space away from the path of the International Space Station." It's being tested - the plan is to destroy debris between one to ten centimeters in length.
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NASA To Build Laser Space Broom for ISS More

NASA To Build Laser Space Broom for ISS

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  • So, they're going to blast space junk into even more pieces? Or do they seriously think that they can turn them into vapor? If so, the pulse duration of the beam is going to have to be extremely short and put a lot of energy into the debris, or else the thing will ablate where the beam strikes it and the outgassing will scoot it out of the way. I didn't know we were close to having space-born lasers that could do that on a repetitive basis.
  • I think it's about time the U.S. had it's very own Satellite Orbital Laser. Fwakoom!
  • Variation on the Star Wars program? I know my Uncle has been working with the Air Force on this type of stuff for a while. It's not like this all just disappeared. This really is a great use for all the thought that has gone into photon weaponry over the decade. Way to go NASA! Now, with all the coorporations building space craft, why dosen't NASA build for coorporations or even *gasp* the public! I know I wouldn't mind having a non leathal weapon to knock over that bully at school that always asks me for my lunch money. haha
    Dissenter
  • very true, but odds are the impact velocity will be much less than 18000mph as most objects are orbiting in the same direction, so the relative velocity will be much less (but increasing with angle of incedence and ecentricity). However, for objects with opposing orbits, 36000mph is more likely, and thus more deadly; in which case, you're hosed.

    Bill - aka taniwha
    --

  • Some Basic facts:

    Ok, I don't have the links right here at my finger tips but as far as this junk goes there is a progression of sizes.

    Lots and lots of small stuff and comparatively few larger chunks.

    Any thing larger than a baseball is currently tracked IIRC and could be avoided and/or intercepted economically. Anything smaller than a centimeter is probably too small to track.

    Note: The currently tracked limit is probably smaller than a baseball, and this laser is a cost saver. Cheaper to give a little push now than to physically intercept it or move the station.

    (I would LIKE to be able to say that the small stuff would not breach the walls of the station, but I think lots of it in the 9mm to 2mm range would go right on through. Ouch! IMHO)

    This junk can be broken into a few catagories.

    "Incoming/natural" objects. This stuff is not in orbit. The earth, or in this case the station, is in the way. Statistically this stuff is small and unimportant. Probably not enough warning anyway.

    "Equatiorial orbit" space junk. In theory this is like your fellow drivers on the multilane highway. They are mostly going the same way and the relative speeds SHOULD be low. The best way to launch is the direction the earth rotates and starting near the equator. Because you start out with hundreds of mph/kph of head start. These orbits should mostly be of contant altitude and would not mess with each other much (however, the moon plays with them. see below)

    "Polar and strange orbits" The militaries like to orbit in what are called polar orbits. They go over the poles so they can SEE everything. They require extra fuel to launch. Being near right angles to the equator they can cross the paths other satelites at high speed. There are no stop lights here!

    Why do satellites come down and orbits change? The culprit is the moon. When something is in orbit around the earth, sometimes it gets an extra boost from the moon's gravity and other times it looses energy. So even if it starts out in a perfect orbit, the moon eventually messes with it so that it can not maintain the orbit. (The sun also helps) Because the moon is so large compared to the earth, there can not be any other long term moons of the earth. Don't even look, Sorry.

    There is a physics problem called the three body problem. (I could not find any good links to put up here with a just a quick look:-( The general idea is there is that there are no stable solutions to this problem. (Yes, I know about the trojan points L4 and L5, but finding that info is left as a student excersise as we earthlings do not use them currently)

    Everything will eventually decay out unless it has some form of orbital manuvering units (impulse engines) to keep it in orbit.

    The effects of the moon on orbits are very slow. but can be calcultated. A little nudge from the laser at the correct point could massively speed up this process. IMHO, NASA intends to use this to clean up most of low earth orbit. This would explain the why it is ground based. (power supply and maintenance when lots of shots are done)

    Because of the effects of the moon, what was once beside you is soon moving at a different speed and direction and can bump.

    BTW: (off topic) Starfleet needs new trainers for pilots as they always set up orbits which are too low. If the planet has no moon, (someone stole most of the moons in StarTrek) it should take decades for an orbit to decay enough to be concerned. Funny thing is that the orbits always look like they are very high orbits.

  • Apparently, they are just going to push the debris out of the way of the space station (you can do that with lasers). This takes a heck of a lot less energy than actually vaporizing stuff though it is a lot less cool.

    Ethan Jewett
    E-mail: Now what spa I mean e-mail site does Microsoft run again?

  • You'd think with all the time and effort they've put in they could have come up with a better name than "Space Broom." Sounds like a badly translated anime Villian.
  • This wont actually work in space. The point of the UV laser is to form a stream of ionised particles for the charge to travel along. This would work fine inside earth atmosphere, but in orbit there isn't anything much to ionise. What would you achieve anyway by electrocuting the space junk anyway? Though of course you could try giving the space station a large positive charge and giving all the space junk a large positive charge too (could both be begative of course), then they might tend to avoid eachother through electrostatic repulsion, but of course you will need to find another way to get the charge on the junk....
  • That's why I'm a radioman :-) Damn GMs...
  • Now that would be the hack of all hacks.
  • of course all the stupid linux lusers would say its really an evil microsoft plot to take over the world because there are more linux distributors than number of buyers.
  • I'd get one of these for my wife, but I'd be afraid that she'd use it on me!
  • keep that thing away from my...well, you figure it out.
  • I forgot about that bigass satellite in the movie Akira. I definitely have to show that movie to my girlfriend now, she uses SOL as her internet alias. Speaking of significant others in space...does this mean that housewives are going to get to replace those old vaccum with something like this? Now you can not only scare the dog, you can vaporize him!!! WOOHOO!!! (Sorry, intoxication has somewhat set in)
  • There was a nice article about these very odd projects recently, specifically with respect to the impact of the satellite that was orbiting the Moon. They crashed it into the Moon, and hoped to see water vapor kicked up by the event.

    One of the points was to demonstrate to all adversaries just how sensitive and precise American sensing technologies were; to make them think twice about the ability to get away with tests. But, it's not done with the typical DoD bluster, it's done with a clever, cuddly, science experiment.

    My guess is that that is what is going on here. This is a dual-use demonstration. There's the warm fuzzy "let's help those poor guys out on the space station" (which plays especially well against the Russians on the bottom of the ocean) on the one hand, and the obvious defense applications on the other.

    thad

  • Sorry mods, waste of space... I just read the last paragraph, where it says it won't actually *do* any blasting of objects, only tracking.

    In which case, this whole article here on Slashdot is misleading. It's not a *broom*, its just a debris tracking system that uses lasers...

    Probably Johnny Astronaut is still going to have to go out there and sweep up, the difference is there is a set of lasers on the ground keeping an eye on his work...
  • Nasa has announced that their new space broom will be advertised during the Super Bowl by a digitally recreated dancing Alan Shepard....
  • Quote from article:
    These trials will not involve lasers with sufficient power to affect the debris, as there are concerns that such high power devices might contravene the international weapons treaty banning laser weapons in space.

  • 10+ years ago, I was in a chat room on GeNIE (remember them?:) with a Q/A session with Byte columnist/SciFi author Jerry Pournelle. Over the years Jerry has hobnobbed with people at NASA and been an advisor of sorts in Washington on things scienterrifical.

    The Q/A session revolved around the viability of putting up a large space station, like the one in Moonraker. I had read some artical about NASA having a catalog of 8,000+ items (including an electric screwdriver) floating in orbit. When my turn came I asked Jerry if he didn't consider it hazardous to plop something in the way of all these missiles.

    Jerry dismissed my concern with an analogy of the danger presented to a rowboat in the Pacific by a coconut. He didn't seem to consider that that coconut would be moving fast enough to reduce the rowboat to splinters, should they meet. I voiced my concern that he was an idiot to another conference attendee, she turned out to be Mrs. Pournelle.

    At the expense of a few billion bucks by NASA I feel somewhat vindicated now.

    Now all I want to know is, can this thing pop a HUGE Jiffy Pop if I put it in someone's living room...

    Vote [dragonswest.com] Naked 2000
  • Actually we have had lasers that can damage, if not destroy, other countries satilites for more than a year.

    There is one of these in Arizona, it was tested last year to see if it could hit a sensor so that NASA could record some info. They used the lowest setting that they knew would reach the satilite and it destroyed the sensor.

    As for lasers in space. There is an international treaty that was originally constructed and signed by the US, CCCP, and China that bans laser weapons in space. So NASA could not construct a deathstar with lasers without breaking international treaty. Particle weapons and rail guns, on the other hand, I believe are still viable options.
  • No Federation Starship or Starbase should be without one! (Granted, we're travelling sublight up there...)
  • I seriously doubt that the technology to produce high-power laser that is focused enough to take out 10cm metal/ceramic targets in orbit exists today.

    Actually there is a ground based laser system in Arizona that can do just that. It was tested sometime last year.

    How having a ground based laser system effects the treaty about not allowing laser weapons in space is something I would like to know.
  • Does anybody find it strange that the BBC is reporting breaking news from NASA? The BBC?!?! What?

    Despite that... this is very cool! NORAD already tracks thousands of pieces of space debris, which are very threatening to space travel, and someday, space-living.

    I'm curious whether this technology is related to the decade of research for the "Star Wars" defense initiative?

    --cr@ckwhore
  • Are they planning on scattering these all over the globe? The ISS won't sit in a geosync orbit, as I understand... that means needing lasers all over the place.
  • In the discussions a while back about the supersonic submarine, using it's rediculously high speeds to create itself a little bubble, we ran across the problem of stuff in the way.

    Now, the submarine can just nuke the crap out of everything in front of it. Whales, debris, sunken treasure, land masses, whatever it may be.
    ______
  • This from the same people who call the shipyard in Groton, CT that makes the stelthy nuclear powered submarines that carry dozens of intercontinental balistic missiles that can rain down multiple independant warheads on nearly any city in the world with less than 1 hours notice . . .the electric boat division.

    Uh. Isn't that what General Dynamics calls their submarine division? I mean, at least there's a private sector precedent for it.

  • There's some rather faulty logic going on with the general concept. I'm not saying that the idea wouldn't work, but it is rather a bit of overkill. Using a ground-based laser to punch through the atmosphere in order to deflect a piece of debris doesn't make sense when there would be much cheaper alternatives.

    One, if nothings else, it could be station-based. That would mean that the laser wouldn't need the power to clear the atmosphere, and it would make targeting a lot easier (there's a very low relative speed for a target approaching you).

    Two, since this whole process involves tracking and eliminating a known threat (and therefore preperation time would be in weeks/months/etc. and not minutes), the same level of protection could be achieved simply by using the station's robotic arm to place protective panels where they would deflect the known incomming debris.

    The surface-to-space kill-o-zap device would be reduced to a simple catcher's mit (which sounds a lot cooler than a broom), although it should shouldn't actually "catch" the debris (unless very small), but instead deflect, which is easier.

    The device mentioned in the artical would not be able to deflect anything with a decent amount of mass. Anything that a ground-based laser could "deflect" could just as easily be deflected by a physical barrier.

    Mind you, I'm guessing that they want the funding for their toy and they also want the "hype" to bolster support for a declining NASA.

    Now, regarding some rather odd comments in the parent post....:

    First, it's ground-based. They are not putting it on the station.

    Second, .... what if something goes wrong? Please, they would have to go through great effort to actually hit something in space. The odds of them not only missing, but hitting something that would be miles away..... it's not as if they are going to wait until it's a few hundred feet from the station.

    Third... a puncture in the station would cause an air leak, not a major incident. I'm not saying some 5 cent piece of chewing gum would fix the leak. This is NASA. Some 50 dollar piece of chewing gum would be used to fix it.

  • Yes, someone who puts LSD in your coffee is a laser.
  • Now Broom, you must now sweep for me
    The dust it fills my room
    No, John, I will not sweep for you
    For I am not your broom

    What nonsense are you speaking, Broom
    My words you must obey
    Another life awaits me and
    I'm leaving you today

    I am not your broom
    I am not your broom
    I've had enough, I'm throwing off
    My chains of servitude

    I am not your broom
    I am not your broom
    No longer must I sweep for you
    For I am not your broom


    -----
  • hopefully the airspace between the ground laser and the space station will classified as restricted. i'd hate to be flying my little cessna over it when the space station needs some help. ;^)

    of course, that would be an interesting addition to the next version of ms flight sim...
    -legolas

    i've looked at love from both sides now. from win and lose, and still somehow...

  • Wait a sec, photons have no mass! Therefore, they have no momentum! Therefore, they can't transmit any force of motion to another object. Only by vaporizing some small amount of the object being deflected can they create particles which will actually affect the motion of the object. Of course, a laser can be used to provide the energy to do this, but the energy requirements are huge, as many have pointed out. Just shining a flashlight on some dust in the air doesn't move the dust!
  • Man, just think of how fast I could clean up with one of those. Hurry up NASA, you've finally created a useful bit of technology! :-)

    the AC
  • get one of these for my apartment?

  • This brings new meaning... (Score:3)

    by angst_ridden_hipster ( 23104 ) on Thursday August 17, 2000 @11:28AM (#847271) Homepage Journal
    ... to the term "Vacuum cleaner."

    But seriously, this has been just one of many proposals for clearing space junk. There's foam shields, thermal reflectors, lasers, armor, reactive panels, and, my favorite, luck.
    -
    bukra fil mish mish
    -
    Monitor the Web, or Track your site!
  • Wait a sec, photons have no mass! Therefore, they have no momentum!

    BZZZT! And thank you for playing. Here's [sjgames.com] your lovely parting gift. Photons do have momentum,

    p = E/c, or
    p = hv/c

  • jeee ma! I 0wn3d a space statione with iss security holes.
  • "nothing sucks more than a VAX"
    -- from the Hacker's Jargon Dictionary
    --
  • All I could think of when I read this story is the episode of The Tick where Chairface Chippendale tries to write his name on the moon with a gigantic laser. I have the sudden urge to see "Ned" in huge letters across the night sky.
  • Ooops, my bad. Thanks for the update.
    --
  • Something 11cm in Diameter comes along and smacks the ISS.. Sheesh.

    ---
  • Probably one of those nosy 00x agents told them.

    Then again, it's probably not as exciting to the US press as say, a nice car wreck.

    Vote [dragonswest.com] Naked 2000
  • where the beam strikes it and the outgassing will scoot it out of the way

    Actually, I suspect that this is exactly what they have in mind. They're trying to protect a single target, not clean up orbit with this thing.
    The power requirements to vaporize a sheet of aluminum 10 cm square through the atmosphere is quite beyond our present technology.


  • They could, presumably, use a set of mirrors in geosynch orbit, or something. Of course, then the focusing of the laser becomes a huge issue.

    Of course, it's entirely possible that I don't know what I'm talking about; I have no idea how a mirror, hit with a high-powered light source, will behave.
    --

  • However, we all know that the real purpose of this project is to protect Earth from the fleets of Xaxxis, the evil interstellar commander.

    The Air Force will most likely be borrowing it on weekends to fight off bug-eyed repo men who want to get a hold of the Roswell wreckage. I had very good sources for all of this information, but they're being mysteriously killed off one at a URK!!!

  • The Navy has a gun that can use relatively small bullets to destroy large targets. The giant "laser" could do the same thing if it can be aimed fast enough. Shoot it 'till it breaks up, then shoot the pieces until they vaporize.

    --Threed-Looking out for Numero Uno since 1976!
  • "Space Station rams satellite, astronauts stuck to the wall."

    Heinlein once wrote a short story using this theme. It was on the moon, and a tunnel got holed, too big for little sticky balloons to seal, so the characters used their, err... posterior portions to seal the breach till they were rescued.
  • I believe that the device is known as CIWS (Close-in Weapons System), which consists of an M61 20mm Vulcan cannon. It uses small rounds, but fires them at a rate of 100 rounds per second. I've actually seen a few of them (not in action, though), aboard the USS Wasp (LHD-1), and one of my RDC's in boot camp worked with them before becoming an RDC. Cool devices :-)
  • not really. IIRC, the defensive shields are a combination of a forced plasma grid and a localized gravity well which deflects or absorbs particles or energy. In fact, there was a /. article some time ago describing a possible use of 'cold' plasma for something very like this...
  • That would be because the company that builds US submarines is called the Electric Boat Company, a division of General Dynamics. (Yes, I read too much Tom Clancy..)
  • That'd have to be pretty small. Even a tiny paint flake moving at those speeds can cause major damage.
  • What we signed an international weapons treaty banning laser weapons in space? Shit, how are we going to defend ourselves from the martians?
  • Except my idea was to have little reflective boarders put around all my furniture, then have a laser sweep the entirety of my floor zapping all the dust, and reflecting off the furniture, so I wouldn't have to vacume ever again. Of course, this only works in my mind when I'm actually vacuming. When I sit here and think about it, I know it won't work.

  • Didn't they ever watch Fantasia?
  • Isn't that a little large? Or can the station handle anything smaller than that without too much trouble?. A 9mm hole is still 9mm (and would probably be bigger due to cratering) which would allow a fair bit of air through (especially if there's two of them).

    Hmm, maybe it's 1cm because that's what they can currently track. Still, an excellent idea :)

    Bill - aka taniwha
    --

  • If you thought the Empire was bad, wait until you see the US government with a laser!
  • Using lasers as a propolusion method turns up from time to time in sci-fi. Something about the mass of the photons being enough to give a craft a "push." Perhaps this system will simply push the aforementioned debris elsewhere.

  • Why launch MORE junk? (Score:5)

    by cgifool ( 147454 ) on Thursday August 17, 2000 @01:00PM (#847294)
    Trials of the system are due to start in 2003. The US space shuttle will launch dummy targets of a similar size, and a laser back on Earth will attempt to lock on to them.

    I don't understand, there's TONS of junk already up there that they're tracking all the time. Why release MORE of it to test with??

  • Yeltsin?? Yeltsin isn't in power anywhere anymore, man....
  • Some of that crap up there (nuts, bolts, misc junk) is moving far too fast to be recaptured.

    Anyway, I don't get this article. I mean, I watched a *TV show* about space debris tracking. Either /. missed it the first time around, or there's been new developments that haven't been modded up yet.

    --Threed-Looking out for Numero Uno since 1976!
  • Maybe there will be enough ionization residue from the beam passing through the atmosphere to fill up the seasonal variations over the Antarctic.

    It may also cause more space debris than it eliminates. If you put a ten centimeter hole in a foreign government's "communications satellite", it will certainly qualify as debris...

  • We could just spray a couple cans of instant tire sealant into the space station instead. If one of these space debris happens to hit it, it'll seal up like a Goodyear Eagle! That stuff was developed by NASA anyways, wasn't it?
  • Yeah, they're really cool, alright... until some jackass GMG decides to point it at you while you're checking some compressed air piping on the gun mount. After watching those things shred drones like tissue paper, its somewhat disconcerting to look straight down into their barrels. :/

    Deo

  • NASA did not invent velcro!! It was some guy and his dog (not that his dog did much of the inventing)

  • It looks like I missed some importants discoveries in physics.
  • Ok, in a few years NASA will have this broom that can wipe space objects threatening ISS.

    Then you need just to adjust the code a little and change a certain variable from ISS to

    mProtectedTarget = new StaticOrbit (mySqlDb->query("FROM countries SELECT coordinates WHERE countryname='USA'\\g"));

    and do a little

    mInputPower *= 10.0;

    to swipe away any bothersome ICBMs that might accidentally collide with the protected target.

  • I remember an old joke. The astronauts found that the ball-pens do not work in no-gravity conditions, obviously. NASA started a multimilion dollar research work on no-g pens, and a couple of years later came up with a special, $1000 pen which worked almost perfectly even on the orbit. It later became widely available as an expensive gadget.

    The Russians, however, when faced with the same problem, started using pencils.

    Best regards,

    January

  • Just kidding ... I hope.

    But it does raise a real question: given that quite a lot of space debris will probably be reflective simply because space equipment is quite often reflective in order not to absorb heat from the sun, how is this laser going to deal with it?

    The most likely outcome of this seems to be that the space station's sensors are going to be burned out because of unwanted reflections from the targetted junk.
  • That is the best .sig I have read in awhile.

    Thanks for the laugh

  • the plan is to destroy debris between one to ten centimeters in length.

    I hope they don't confuse metres with feet again...
  • I wasn't there but I would suspect he ment that the reason the coconut wouldn't be harmful is due to the fact that the liklihood of hitting a given coconut in the ocean with your rowboat is pretty damned slim.

    Don't think this vindicates you. The liklihood of hitting any of those 8000 articles is still extremely slim. This system isn't being made to deflect Nasa's lost objects, it's there to deflect natural space debris.

    I wonder what Mrs. Pournell said to her husband about you.
  • I want to know where NASA will be testing this "laser" and if I can watch (with stylish shades of course).
  • Leave it to the US 'gubment to use a term like broom to refer to a spaced station based, highly focused beem of energy with enough power to send sputnic to a firey death at the end of a decaying orbit.

    This from the same people who call the shipyard in Groton, CT that makes the stelthy nuclear powered submarines that carry dozens of intercontinental balistic missiles that can rain down multiple independant warheads on nearly any city in the world with less than 1 hours notice . . .the electric boat division.

  • Wow, sounds like someone's been playing Asteroids too much.
  • I think it is time we demonstrate the full power of this station.
    Set your course for Alderaan.


    ;-)

  • How does it work, Mr. Wizard? (Score:3)

    by code_rage ( 130128 ) on Thursday August 17, 2000 @01:13PM (#847312)
    The BBC article does not say how it works. Although vaporizing debris might seem like a good idea, a little calculation shows that the energy requirements for this are HUGE. Do a little calorimetry on melting a steel bolt. I haven't done the calculations but it's gotta be pretty daunting. (Where's that CRC handbook when I need it?)

    A few months ago I heard of a proposal by The Aerospace Corp [aero.org] to use lasers for just this purpose. The idea was to generate light pressure on debris objects to cause orbital decay, not to disintegrate them. The experiment mentioned by the BBC is likely a feasibility demonstration.

  • Subcontracted for the job will be the Drax Corporation...

  • This sounds like very interesting technology. It also sounds as an inevitable one -- that is if you want to stay up there for a bit longer.

    Just one thing is on my mind: "How the hell did the Russians do it?" I am not aware of them having a space laser broom for the last 20 years. Yet Mir has been up there for a long long time and it isn't much smaller then ISS today.

    You don't want to tell me it's because the Russians are more lucky, do you?

  • This is a ground-based system that can locate and destroy or divert these fragments.

    Just don't let anybody from Microsoft within a parsec of that thing - the last thing we need is for the Borg to get access to deflector control.

  • Re:Ground based vs moving object in orbit (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The debris would be moving overhead just like ISS would...approximately every 90 minutes. Assuming your tracking is good enough (which BTW contrary to the claims above that NORAD is doing it, is really done by Space Command), it should not be a problem.
  • It's a long shot, but this device proves helpful, they might make a special exception for it.

    Good point. Since the system will be ground-based, though, I would expect it to have to be located on somewhat neutral territory (wherever that is) in order to be exempt from the treaty.

  • but we all know it's to protect us from those pissed off martians who keep getting probes bounced off their pointey little heads.
  • that must be the effective vaccuum-sealing size of duct tape (as determined in a multimillion dollar test by NASA).

    come to think of it, you probably wouldn't need adhesive at all, just a new piece of metal and stick it to the wall and let air pressure hold it in place. now there's a headline: "Space Station rams satellite, astronauts stuck to the wall."

    -----
  • This article should have been from the alan-parsons-project department.
  • /. nees a (+1, Horribly Painful Groaner) setting. Nice one. :)
  • This is just like that funky dish on the front of the Enterpirse is for--it sweeps stuff out of the way.

    Can't NASA come up with any of their own ideas?

  • This is a Good Thing (Score:4)

    by carlhirsch ( 87880 ) on Thursday August 17, 2000 @11:29AM (#847340) Homepage
    Orbital debris is the probably the single greatest hazard for any planned satellite or space station. Something like this will make sustained development of orbital frontiers much more feasible.

    I'm getting antsy to see us (globally, not in a U.S.ian sense) put more send more platforms up the gravity well. All of the more realistic proposals for interstellar/interplanetary travel involve orbital construction.

    And again, I think that sustainable development is key. What's the orbital equivalent of ecology? Vacuumology? La Grange-ology?

    -carl

  • Suddenly 30,000 times cooler... (Score:3)

    by MythoBeast ( 54294 ) on Thursday August 17, 2000 @11:31AM (#847342) Homepage Journal
    Ten centimeters? Do you realize that this means we can shoot other people's satilites out of orbit? Cool! Unfortunately, even a laser beam would spread out over several feet when shot from the ground - it would be REALLY neat if they could have one of those suckers mounted on the space station itself. It's the NASA deathstar!

    Mythological Beast

  • Weapons treaty to change? (Score:4)

    by liquidgrrl ( 203830 ) on Thursday August 17, 2000 @11:44AM (#847344)
    I fail to understand how this system will get past the international weapons treaty mentioned in the article. It states that it "is a ground-based system that can locate and destroy or divert these fragments." However, the system trials planned for 2003 "will not involve lasers with sufficient power to affect the debris, as there are concerns that such high power devices might contravene the international weapons treaty banning laser weapons in space."

    Do they expect the treaty to be altered in time for the system's official launch? Is NASA expecting that the space station will acquire significant puplic importance, sufficient to overcome the general fear of 'space lasers' that initially birthed the treaty?

  • They better send out Roger Wilco...



  • More articles (Score:3)

    by code_rage ( 130128 ) on Thursday August 17, 2000 @01:26PM (#847356)
    Here are some additional articles with some more details:

    The New Scientist article [newscientist.com]
    Marshall Space Flight Center PDF file [nasa.gov]

  • The earth has the atmoshere to burn up debris. It is also will not have anything that will explode, except maybe the metiorite itself. The space station on the other hand could be coliding with these particles can rupture the skin. Space is a very low pressure environment. What happens when a high pressure container ruptures in a low pressure environment. That assumes that the station survives. KE=v^2*m (KE kenetic energy, v velocity, m mass) assume that it goes 5 miles/second (~8km/sec) which results in a very high force. a space craft 2m long is *obliterated* by a 1 cm plastic particle traveling @ 5 miles/second. imagine that particle hitting the ISS. Likely causing a MAJOR problem, or destroying it, possibly causing a chain of sattelite destruction, resulting in a loss of the ability to use sattelites at all.

  • What's the orbital equivalent of ecology? Vacuumology? La Grange-ology?

    My first thought would be astrology, but that's already taken.

  • Just think of it: using such a thing to clean your room. No more need fore stupid AI vacuum cleaners that can let you stumble over it.

    Add a smoke generator, and you get an impressive laser show, too :-)
  • Nopefully this isn't too naive a question but wouldn't this laser broom cause some trouble if it ran across larger debris? Possibly break it into smaller chunks and cause it to hit other satellites?

  • ISS Laser? (Score:3)

    by griffjon ( 14945 ) <GriffJonNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday August 17, 2000 @12:29PM (#847368) Homepage Journal
    I first read that topic and throught, "whoa--Internet Security Systems is getting reallllly serious about proactive security..."

    I'm too deep in this all.
  • They are going to use a ground-based laser to shoot em down. Whoa.

    Looks like either
    (a) SDI has managed to hide a key development as "civilian"
    OR
    (b) NASA is clever and manage to get AirForce funding on essential technologies.

    Make your pick.

  • Re:What about Mir? (Score:3)

    by Claudius ( 32768 ) on Friday August 18, 2000 @07:13AM (#847385)
    Just one thing is on my mind: "How the hell did the Russians do it?"

    The Russians, who are the world experts on long-duration space flight, simply relied on their cosmonauts' being able to scurry into a Soyez capsule in the event of a hull breach. Unless the breach were catastrophic, e.g. impact with a large piece of junk, the crew would have many minutes before the cabin would become uninhabitable. This indeed happened in recent times, though not from impact with space debris or meteorites. During the Shuttle-Mir program Tsibliev, the Russian cosmonaut/commander, inadvertantly rammed an unmanned supply vessel into Mir and punctured the hull of the space station. Tsibliev has since been cleared of wrongdoing in the collision since Energia (the private company who runs Mir) and their systems were ultimately at fault, but he and Latzukin, the other cosmonaut on board at the time, will probably never return to space--in the Russian program you don't make Energia look bad and then expect to collect your bonuses or see time in the sky. Michael Foale was the NASA astronaut on Mir at the time. Apparently, as Foale has commented subsequent to his mission, having one's ears pop from a hull breach can really ruin one's day.

    The collision, depressurization, and subsequent risky EVAs (even an intra-vehicular activity where astronauts moved through the depressurized cabin to restore the science component of Mir and diagnose the breach) caused much concern among NASA for the safety of the astronaut and cosmonauts on board. It should come as no surprise that the international community wants a system for averting such emergencies on the ISS.

    You don't want to tell me it's because the Russians are more lucky, do you?

    No, but cultural differences exist in how we and they approach space flight. In short, we think they are reckless, and they think we are wusses. In many ways their cosmonauts are more flexible than our astronauts. We train our astronauts six ways until Sunday to do precisely what we want them to do in space, and almost without fail they do it. The Russians have less reliance on specifics, but they have a wealth of experience forming contingencies and repairing broken stuff. Space stations suffer breakdowns, and the ISS will be no different. The Russians cosmonauts and ground support personnel, with their experience keeping Mir up in the sky for so long, will prove to be valuable partners in the ISS program.

  • well, if you read it again, I think you'll find that it says that the upcoming test won't use lasers that can blast anything... but that the operational system most certainly would.

    I wouldn't categorize this so much as a debris tracking system as a test of a debris targeting system which is an another animal entirely.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Does anyone have any details on how this is legal under the strategic space arms ban treaty that was signed between the US and Russia a few years ago?

    It would seem to me that there'd be very little to prevent this technology from being used as a counter-measure against enemy satellite systems, at least at face value.

    So I'm curious if there is some way this is being allowed under the terms of the treaty. Anyone with better understanding of it care to comment?

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