From: "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Bring a lunch for this elevator ride...
Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 18:42:20 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 03, 2005 3:29 PM
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Bring a lunch for this elevator ride...

> At 02:57 PM 5/3/05 -0400, Steve Smith wrote:
>
[...]
>
> >Biggest problem I see (outside, of course, of financing and building the
> >thing) is space debris.  What happens when a chunk of explosive bolt
> >left over from the Gemini Program hits your cable?  Yeah, the per- orbit
> >probability is pretty small, but you're going to be doing *a lot* of
orbits.
>
> That's easy!  You just station a bunch of 8-year olds with slingshots
along
> the length of the cable and let them shoot the debris before it can hit!
;-)
>
> Protecting spacecraft is tough enough, and they don't have thousands of
> miles of area to protect.  Maybe there's an opportunity for a "space junk
> collector"?  A counter-orbiting set of big foam sponges should do it over
> time for the little stuff (like paint chips), and the big stuff (like
bolts
> and gloves and old satellites) you can track with radar and maybe go
> retrieve once you have cheaper access to orbit.  I think they are
tracking
> a few tens of thousands of objects already like that so there's plenty of
> work to do for any "collection" company that wants to start
> up...tether/beanstalk or not.

My mid-'60s juvenile, SECRET OF THE MARAUDER SATELLITE, dealt with the
issue of space debris -- not all of which is very small.

--Ted White