[ExI] Name the Rogue Satellite Operation (orbits)

[hkhenson]

At 07:46 AM 2/20/2008, you wrote:
>On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 06:44:42AM -0700, hkhenson wrote:
>
> > At least the US is being relatively responsible because debris that
> > low will decay out of orbit in a short time.
>
>If you hit an orbiting object with a kinetic kill vehicle, the
>resulting fragments will go everywhere, higher orbits included.

The results partly depend on the direction of the hit.  Head on is 
mostly going to slow down the pieces  But even blowing one up in a 
low orbit should result in the worst case pieces having a perigee at 
the same altitude unless they get enough impulse for escape.

>All it takes to ruin it for everybody is a joker shooting up tons
>of ball bearings (make them tungsten, if you can) in an orbit good
>for kYrs. Have fun catching those, suckas.

DU would be slightly better and less expensive.

Part of the space elevator/solar power satellite approach to the 
carbon and energy problem is cleaning up the space junk.  I recently 
talked to a professor who has been working on a genetic algorithm 
approach to multiple rendezvous orbits.  He says my estimates for the 
number of tugs and time look reasonable, maybe even pessimistic.

Keith