PotatoCannons&SpaceJunk?

It would need to be a really large /and solid/ net. The density of this stuff look really crowded on "art" but in reality is miles/kilometers apart. like 6 or 7 km See incident below.I wasn't able to find a good figure for density per km^3 but heres some facts on the subject.

from http://www.nasawatch.com/debris.html (sorry, link no longer available):

Editor's note: Last Friday the U.S. Space Command alerted NASA that ISS might come within 7 km of a spent Russian rocket stage. U.S. Space Command upgraded that alert to a 1 km pass on Saturday. NASA had 3 opportunities to deal with this (note that ISS commands need to be sent to ISS from Russia ergo they can only occur when ISS is in range of Russian tracking).

NASA/Russia were not ready for the first opportunity. When they were ready to try the second time, the U.S. Space Command said that the place where NASA wanted to put ISS was not safe either. On the third attempt, commands sent to the ISS were refused by the FGB - so nothing was done. Eventually ISS did pass the old Russian rocket Sunday morning 13 June at a distance of 8 km. NASA is apparently mad at U.S. Space Command right now and trying to shift some of the blame for this incident their way.

The Germans have done some good work here:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V3S-479D818-8&_user=10&_origUdi=B6V3S-472C97H-P6&_fmt=high&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F1991&_rdoc=1&_orig=article&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=4b2f76f003a4cd531d781560350383eb

Here's a paper with some US data:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V3S-4019JG4-70&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F1995&_alid=896312920&_rdoc=8&_fmt=high&_orig=mlkt&_cdi=5738&_sort=v&_st=17&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=378&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=0dfef1d6eca3e09afd80b8dcd9142f4a

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V1N-47T22P5-6&_user=10&_coverDate=02%2F29%2F2004&_alid=896312920&_rdoc=25&_fmt=high&_orig=mlkt&_cdi=5679&_sort=v&_st=17&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=378&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=a6246f3bf6340ded9c3f1b04807f999f

See figures l and ll here:

http://www.unoosa.org/pdf/reports/ac105/AC105_720E.pdf

Milo

Thanks Milo, I reviewed your suggested links.

Smashing, steering, or deflecting seem to be the options, and all seem dependent of the size of the space junk.

Say we make a 4 inch bore cannon that fires a big nosed shell at something as large as a drifting rocket stage?

Basically now I am thinking of reversing the net, and turning it into the equivalent of a boxing glove, for something that size and mass, allowing for weightless environments.

I am imagining a "Shell" that fired from the cannon expanded its netnose somehow so that when hitting the space debris, would push against it enough to slow, or deflect it from its path at the International Space Station.

Now I am not a gun nut, and have only two firearms, and a BB pistol.

I consider my shotgun the most valuable all round weapon I have.

Shotguns are pretty simple and I wonder if in the case of some space junk that may be threatening the International Space Station, a recoilless shotgun might be applicable for defense of the Station for say Debris sizes between 10 centimeters and three meters?

I add the recoilless adjective to the shotgun, or "Potato Cannon" in consideration of the desire, not to necessarily have what you fire from the Spacestation, to alter its course.

Now we are aware that golf balls have been hit on the moon, but I am not aware of regular old rifles, shotguns, pistols, or bb guns being fired in outerspace.

Rayguns in Space are typically more desirable due to control issues related to back force.

What about a Spring wound net deflection tailed sticky net thrower?

These are nice as ideas.

They seem to reveal your terrestrial nature.

'Recoiless shotguns'- for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction...?

Shot gun implies multiple projectiles, so for every target, you may launch 30 or more projectiles, plus the shotgun itself...? Plus a shooter?

Having read some of those links, plus others i see that a lot of the stuff that was non mission ending was 1mm and below. so vaporizing and or liquifying with sufficient energy sounds doable. Lasers are steerable but...

I'll give you "milo dumbth" idea of my own. How about puting up in high orbit, a big honking fresnel lense. Such that it tracks over high volume of debris pockets in lower orbits and vaporizes and liquifies them. The us Govt is tracking ~10,000 of the biggies. Maybe Chris 299 can do one of his great renderings of this as an "artists concept"...

I'd just like to reduce the small debris even more to gas form and then if our sun ever decides to get active again, solar forcing will purge them as gas moleculesin and out of the troposphere. Basically i'm a passive means kinda guy. Despite my shootin irons.

milo

What makes you think that melting metalic junk with a giant magnifying glass will make it go away?

IMO, if all the random bits of junk were melted, they would just form into little spheres and continue to follow about the same orbits.

If one could get them hot enough to vaporize then they would just condense into still smaller bits as each gas cloud cooled.

Better to quit littering in my book!

What makes you think that melting metalic junk with a giant magnifying glass will make it go away?

The Distribution of size data from the links I provided.

Did you read figures l and ll in the UN Report?

milo

Wow,

That's a fertile mind that can take us from, "Some guys shot a cow with a frozen potato" to, "a net that captured the space junk".

Out on the Mill Creek, where I grew up, we killed our cows with bullets, to the head.

Sputnik was all that was up there then.

I guess things are more complicated now.

LL

When I joined the National Guard, my unit still had 90mm recoiless rifles. They were antitank weapons, successors to the bazooka.The bazooka was a rocket launcher. The 90mm's fired an explosive shell in a cartridge.

I never got to fire one. I seen a guy after he spent most of the day at a 90mm range. His eyes were bugged out and dazed. Don't think I missed anything special by not shooting one. I did pose for a picture with one for our local paper. It was on the ground, and I was squatted down holding a rag against it as if I was cleaning it.

I did get to fire the LAW - Light Antitank Weapon. It was a rocket that came in an expandable tube launcher. The rocket had a tip that would burn a hole through the armor, then when the rocket was completely inside the armored vehicle, it would explode.

What made the 90mm recoiless was the open breach. It required a two-man crew, a gunner who fired it, and an assistant who loaded the cartridge from behind, then checked the area behind the weapon to see if the backblast area was clear. If it was, he'd signal the gunner it was okay to fire, usually be tapping the gunner's helmet.

By the time I got out, the 90mm had been replaced by the Dragon and the TOW. They were essentially bigger versions of the LAW.

BTW, the LAW also has a backblast area that needs to be checked before firing.

In one of the Rambo movies, he's sitting in a Huey somewhere in Southeast Asia with a bunch of POW's in the back that he just freed from a prison camp, and he's decoying a Soviet HIND chopper. When the HIND hovers in front of him, he stops playing dead, and blasts the HIND with a LAW or RPG. The problem is, he just fried the guys he was trying to save!

Having fired an old Mauser, I got a good idea of how beat up you might get from shooting. I've said, "You shoot that sort of rifle 5 times in a day, and you want to go home."

Last time I shot anything, it was my single shot 20 gauge shotgun.

A frozen potato out of a 1.5 Interior Dimension piece of PVC would be lighter to install than a 90mm recoilless rifle.

Have potatoes been grown on the International Space Station?

Nice thing about outerspace is that explosions are quiet.

"Hey Yuri, can I have your potato?"

"Why you want my potato?" "Yuri, you know I want to shoot the rocket booster thats following us." "Okay, but I get to eat your rat."

My idea is a small guided rocket with a pulse-able motor, a bean bag head covered in some type of contact adhesive. Fire it at the junk where it sticks to it, and every time the small rocket points in the correct direction it fires a pulse dropping the junk out of orbit. Larger object not desirable to burn up, a gang of small rockets push it into a junk orbit to be dealt with sooner than later. Of course some of that junk is classified and even though it is junk it is dangerous.

"Recoilless" has been bandied about here. Certainly the potato guns and shotguns are far from not having recoil.

Generally, to be recoilless, the bullet has to be self powered in some way and not have a cartridge case or similar. Or have a rocket motor....

Potato cannons usually use gas to explode to shoot the potato out.

Check out this video of a Potato Cannon in use, note the recoil:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpAJOPzKK-M

I was the driver for a jeep mounted 106mm recoilless rifle. The shell was brass w/ small holes every 1" or so, plugged w/ plastic, that would blow out the ported breech.

LAWs were OK, when you could get them to fire. Loved those stupid rich kids w/ nothing better to do than shoot up the neighborhood. Some were responsible enough to actually use a firing range.

I like the idea of combining the elsewhere mentioned potato gun/sticky beanbag pulse rocket as being probably the 2nd. most cost effective, at about $500,000 a shot, after launch fees. Best would be including a retro rocket with each payload.

I'm gonna build a tennis ball launcher to take care of the deer problem in my garden.

Nice Chris! But I have "multiple moving targets, Ripley", 7 of them, daily. I have time enough to load, but the shot needs about 3 seconds to site and fire. I'll be working with the Katzenjammer Kids for a variety of gooey, sticky, smelly projectiles.

Carl

Boring!! just a picture.....

I want to see what a hole it makes in something!!! Car, garage, house or similar!!!

sadly I didnt' build it.. just admired it

and you can't build it without a picture, drawing or concept... so then you won't ever get a hole if you don't build it.

Chris

Hey Chris, your picture came in as I was writing. Projectile looks good. Saw picture of 5 inch bore Potato Cannon. Simple big and round Projectile may well be the ticket for dangerous drifting boosterstage sized junk.

Possibly compacting and freezing all ISS trash, then wrapping it in Kelvar, and then firing it at space junk would be a fun thing for ISS crews.

It is too bad we cannot ask at this time directly to the ISS Crews, what of our suppositions and wonders, they would like to try out.

In the end it would appear that the International Space Station has no defense budget, and is only able to alter trajectory, and they are then told to hide in the basement.

This seems unfair to them, and I suggest we allow them to have a backup technology, if only possible as a "hail Mary", transitionally.

Frankly I thought that there was some recoilless design that incorporated a counterbalancing throw piston.

I had forgotten about bazooka like weapons, but now wonder what sort of shell, or projectile could be put in an off the self Matador.

I like the "bean bag" type head projectile, since we don't want to actually explode Space Junk, but only push it away.

Further I was thinking that a PVC based anti space junk gun, would be light.

I was also thinking this was not a particularly perfect solution for all the space junk for all sizes from 1,000 mm to drifting rocket boosters, and was only of some utility as an option other than hiding in one part of the International Space Station, which does have some appreciable mass.

I had figured some Astronaut, would have to go outside, sit in a chair, and fire at the threatening space junk.

For a lot of the space junk, nuts and bolts and wrenches I supposed a cow catcher net concept would deflect around the Station some of those small threats.

However as in most cases experiments are called for.

Shooting stuff at large space junk as a matter of course would likely produce information valuable in learning to deal with Asteroids, thus justifying such experiments on two levels.

Defense of the Space Station is good.

Defense of the Planet is good.

In these cases, I am prone to ask first, what might we have on the shelf that will do the job, better than nothing, while we debate and prevaricate over inventing something new, and supposedly more perfect?

Should we not consider some of the missiles made for Air to Air combat, and stuck on Fighter jets, as transitional tools for defense of the Space Station?

As the Space Shuttle is coming to the end of its operational life, without any on line replacement, what other vehicles have we got to get experimental systems up there to the ISS Crew?

I really sort of hate the idea that they are left with the option only of essentially, hiding in the basement.

In some states, dangerous toys like "Potato Guns" are considered in the same manner as "bazookas" and "rocket launchers". It is a felony to own one and another complaint to actually shoot it. Believe it or not. If someone actually shot a cow with one, the sicko's should be punished accordingly. As for the space junk, why not recover it and sell it on ebay>

TMF

As for the space junk, why not recover it and sell it on ebay

Not necessarily a new idea. I'd prefer to send up a craft that would collect the junk, compact it, then blast it at incoming asteroids.

Thanks Rhabe, I was afraid reality would set in, and nothing particularly simple or fun would do.

About these robotic ion rockets? Have such systems been created?

I had wondered if in the vacuum of space, if some of our air to air missiles would have greater speed, and thus application transitionally for deflecting shots?

Obviously you have some numbers, and I am turned from being essentially silly, to serious.

http://www.esa.int/esa-cgi/esasearch.pl?q=ion-thruster&Submit=GO

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMSZCEH1TF_index_0.html

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Electrostatic_ion_thruster

http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470429275,subjectCd-PHA0,descCd-tableOfContents.html

http://www.adastrarocket.com/VASIMR.html

Hi,

here are some links to systems (thrusters) that exist and operate today and/or are developed for near future use.

No robots existing.

To my knowledge it is a beginning. (After 50 years of research)!

Space cleaners are not so important, so we have to wait for some time.

Sending political interests to Mars or Venus will yield honors and medals and TV and newspaper attention.

New satellites are much more important today. Planning for the future is important too. To get much return on investment - not only in $ or € - is important.

So cleaning up will be delayed - maybe for a century or so.

RHABE

Probably one of the more workable answers.

GA!