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RobDickinson t1_j8l6sdz wrote

Space isnt empty. But what it has is quite .. spaced out...

So it depends how fast you are going how worried you need to be.

The space station gets hit by micrometeorites, no reason why Voyager or a ship cant.

We've no idea how a deflector shield would work.

So we'll be looking at armor/shielding and self sealing, plus potentially lasers to pew pew small particles out of the way, if we can detect them.

Scifi has some cool things including large ships that use a whole bunch of ice on the front to absorb the damage

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Spartan24242 t1_j8l6szm wrote

In current events, the Soyuz capsule has been deemed unfit to return ISS personnel. They now have to wait for a spacecraft to come “rescue” them. This is because a micro meteorite has hit that Soyuz capsule. So it is not just a problem for the future, it’s here an now.

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Bewaretheicespiders t1_j8l908a wrote

>This is because a micro meteorite has hit that Soyuz capsule

So they say, but who believes it? There has been obvious self-sabotage in the past.

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The_Fredrik t1_j8llvst wrote

Why would you self-sabotage the spaceship you are in?

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Bewaretheicespiders t1_j8lptj5 wrote

Im speculating here, but maybe some cosmonauts are hoping for a ride back to not-Russia. Or just some pissed off russian workers, who knows.

At any rate, we did see sabotage on Soyuz in recent years and I dont believe for one minute it was the USA/CAD/EU/JPN crew.

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CFCYYZ t1_j8l9lm7 wrote

Micrometeors zip along at 10 to 15 km per second. Something smaller than a pea has the same kinetic energy as a speeding car. Stopping or deflecting that is not easy.

There are "bumper" hull designs that use a series of spaced layers. These are penetrated in turn, slowing anything dangerous. Safe, but at the cost of an expensive heavy multi layer hull.

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Warrior_and_reader t1_j8l94r5 wrote

The asteroid belt is extremely sparse, so it’s not much more dangerous than anywhere else. Impacts will happen, but any human crewed ship that is exploring the solar system will need to be bulky anyway to block radiation, so armoring up won’t change anything.

As far as interstellar travel goes, the simplest method of protection would be to put a large mass in the “front” of the vessel, like a captured asteroid, and let it take the hits.

And in all cases, local, system-wide or even interstellar, radar can be used to detect larger objects at a distance to avoid collisions.

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mcds99 t1_j8l72a2 wrote

Many space craft have been damaged by bits of space dust.

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misterjive t1_j8lblc0 wrote

When people think of the asteroid belt, they think of that scene from The Empire Strikes Back. It isn't remotely like that at all. The truth of the matter is space is humongous and there's just not a lot in it. The only place where it's really a significant danger is places like Earth orbit where it's crap we've shot up there that represents the biggest risk.

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space-ModTeam t1_j8lw9ch wrote

Your post has been removed. For simple questions like these please use the weekly "All space question" thread pinned at the top of the subreddit.

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