ISS crew flees flying space junk

A laser?

Nice idea, but what if they missed the targetted debris (travelling at 20,000mph), they could end up baking a small town on Earth somewhere!

It's clever how they can track so many pieces of fast moving debris so accurately, but it only takes 1 mistake or 1 unnoticed piece to seriously damage or destroy the IIS. Ultimately all the debris will need to be cleared so 1 of 2 things must be invented:

a) Force shields for all satellites and space craft

b) Unmanned craft that track and completely disintigrate debris with a new weapon or force it into the Earth's atmosphere to burn up.

Shield

I think they need to develop a shield as used to protect the Starship Enterprise.....

Perhaps they can use some of that alien technology out of area 51...

How about a high intensity magnetic field generator using supercooled magnets..wouldn't liquid helium to cool them out in space. Generate a massive magnetic field, induce a current in to the oncoming piece of metal ( assuming it's ferous, ok that's this idea blown..it's probably aluminium!) and deflect it..

What happens when there is no warning?

Sure they get warning when the object is 5 inches across, but can they detect a half inch object?

At those speeds a half inch object will whip through the ISS without blinking.

It is likely that small objects pass close by on a reasonably frequent basis but everyone just works on oblivious to the fact.

Re: A laser

Surprisingly, cooling things in space is much more difficult that it first appears. Having no air means there is bugger all contact or convection cooling, so any excess heat has to be lost as radiant heat. And for that you need big heatsinks with lots of surface area.

...according to Fox News

> ..according to Fox News the ISS had 7 people on board!

Thats because the three aboard are about as smart as seven of their average viewers.

How much safer in the Soyuz?

Since the debris could hit the soyuz with only a slightly lower probability than the space station, (presumably it's smaller, but just as vulnerable to being hit by a 20,000mph piece of junk), I wouldn't find it reassuringly safe in there. More a kind of whistling in the dark.

relative?

Or was it the iss passed the object at 20k mps?

Magnetic Shield

Wouldn't a magnetic shield just attract any space junk?

I Wonder.

All the crew got into the Soyuz escape capsule.......and stayed there. What would happen if the debris hit the Soyuz? Is it armoured and designed to withstand a worst case debris collision?

Maybe the Soyuz is positioned so the main station shields it from the flight track of most orbiting debris up there? A five inch chunk of metal traveling at 5 miles a second would punch through the ISS without stopping.

According to the article, they've had to shelter in the Soyuz five times so far. I suppose it's the 'least probable harm' option and I just have to admire them.

Why is the other craft safer?

Is it just a smaller target or is it tougher?

It's only a matter of time...

before we're stuck on this ball of dirt surrounded by a shroud of our own junk.

Maybe it'll be an ideal way to solve "Global Warming".

Pah.

What if...

...the debris had hit the lifeboat?

recycling

Is there no value in collecting and recycling this stuff floating around up there?

More Shields

Shields up, Keptin?

@Sheltering in a Soyuz?

Seem to think that one of the extra modules that they want to fit before space shuttle stops is an extra Soyuz docking port for precisely this reason ... they want to increase crew but until they can dock another Soyuz then they are limited to 3 crew ... except when SS is also docked

speed

20,000 mph relative to the ISS? Are we sure?

@Peter Stocker

"Wouldn't a magnetic shield just attract any space junk?"

Not if in true Star Trek fashion you "inverse the polarity", then it would repel, but since there's no weight in space, I think that could also knock the ISS out of it's orbit.

Disclaimer: Pure guess work, I'm not a physicist.

Obligatory Red Dwarf quote

Time to go to Brown Alert.

title?

the one thing that seems to work well in space is solar power, would it be practical to make a huge electromagnet powered by solar power, send it in a low orbit, then any small pieces of crap up there would be attracted to it and it would change their orbits pulling them down and causing them to fall to earth much sooner than they otherwise would?

it wouldn't effect functional satellites at least, because they are rather large so the same force that might divert a screw probably wouldn't effect a satellite much

of course i have no idea how practical that would be, ie. how much of a difference a huge magnet 1 mile away would make passing in the opposite direction (so only at 1 mile very briefly) or of course how much of it is non-magnetic, but perhaps it is a possibility?

@Yorkshirepudding

but blue alert would mean changing the bulb!

"inverse the polarity"

I thought that was Dr Who?

Goalkeeper

Your best approach is a divide-and-conquer solution.

1) big things: track them continuously and take evasive manouvers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H action

2) medium things: pray

3) small things: vaporize on final approach

So that's one out of three covered so far.

Of course, we could just give up on manned space flight.

They don't know?

"Crew members have sheltered from debris in a Soyaz as many as five times in the past, NASA said."

"As many as"?!? Am I the only one bothered by the fact that NASA doesn't even know how many times the crew members fled to the escape pod? In other words, even NASA doesn't know what goes on up there. I'm so glad my tax dollars are hard at work.

Plasma

They need a plasma cannon.

Ok I know thats impossible but how about we put rush Limbaugh confront of the space station to act as a shield. Whats thats ?? You say his gravitational pull would destroy the space station >?>?

Back to the drawing board

Speed, size & Soyez

Two things:

#1: Given the speed of the possible space junk the hole it's going to make in the side is going to be about the same size as the bit of junk. I think a small bit would be ok 'cos they could lock down the breached section(s) before too much air escaped. Bigger bits mean more air gets out. Of course if it happens to fly through your astronaut or hits a few sections things may be bad....

#2: They probably hide in the Soyez as if everything goes horribly wrong (fires/major structural failure/hole too big to patch and wrong side of door) they can just eject and land safely on earth. If the Soyez does get hit then they're screwed... but if anywhere else does that's the best place to be.