False Prophet wrote: ↑Thu Feb 20, 2020 9:07 am
If I remember correctly, weren't there some companies with the idea of going to space to clear out the debris with spider-like robots?
Ideas, nothing currently remotely close to practical use.
Not just companies, NASA and ESA also had various proposals like using nets, to capture debris
And how exactly do rockets change their direction in space without being under the influence of gravity like ballistic missiles?
Propellant.
Either Vernier thrusters if your spaceship is larger enough, or if your micro/nano-satellite is too small and light, thus having no space to stuff a whole rocket thruster into it, some will just have a few canisters of compressed gas to be released. Inefficient but practical.
Oh well, anything you thrust out from your spaceship will give you a reaction to push your ship towards the opposite direction, so you might as well just open a can of soda/beer and let it spray out as thrust if you are that desperate.
And speaking of ballistic missiles, I have heard people saying that we could use the laser that was used in the American missile-intercepting Boeing aircraft for clearing asteroids if we just figure a way to put that laser projector onto a shuttle. It makes me think of the beam shield of the fore of the Reinforce Junior.
I believe you have mistaken different lasers.
Many have proposed using lasers for deflecting asteroids, DE-STAR is one of them.
Directed Energy System for Targeting of Asteroids and ExplorRation
https://www.deepspace.ucsb.edu/projects ... ry-defense
The idea is NOT destroying the asteroids, which will take too much energy.
The idea is to burn the surface of the target asteroid so that the evaporated material becomes the propellant to create a thrust to push away the asteroid (slowly)
Fanciful and likely would fail, but it sounds impressive enough. I wonder how would ballistic science work in outer space? There aren't that many fictional spaceship with actual ballistic cannons.
First Gundam has plenty. All of the AA guns during OYW are ballistic, the Whitebase class has a 520cm double barrel cannon. Also, technically MS and MA are spaceships, and many use solid rounds to list.
Or if you are talking about ballistic as to a projectile path influenced by gravity, no, it'd be extremely hard to use because gravity is too weak in most of space and the projectile will take too long to hit if you have a long enough distance for gravity to matter, so you'd probably miss instead of hit, calculating the path would be kinda pointless unless you are shooting at a relatively stationary target, like a space station or base, which would still likely be useless because small bullets wouldn't be very effective(even at hyper velocities, because they have all the mass to add shielding) and larger ones will very likely be detected and deflected(you can always send out squads to push it away or shoot it with DE-STAR like laser arrays in that kind of tech level)
Say, I know that modern spacecrafts and space stations are designed into modules. Could these modules be isolated in case of disasters like chambers on a submarine?
Kinda.
Using the ISS as an example, you can see that they have doors between modules, so you can close them in case of emergency.
By hand.
In case of chance of impact from debris, the ISS crew will all go to the Russian module(with highest protection shielding).
Better than a submarine, you only need a spacesuit to survive for an extended period, instead of being crushed by the high pressure of the ocean, and as long as the station isn't blown up, you can still work inside without it being filled with air. So evacuating to other modules is a bit easier than in a submarine.