From: Trask, Robert E (TraskRE@corning.com)
Date: Fri Jul 20 2001 - 08:55:58 MDT
John K Clark jonkc@att.net wrote
> It's nuts! Space based Lasers are large expensive and delicate, I estimate their
> life expectancy in the next war to be about 4 minutes. All you need is a bucket
> of bolts or even sand launched in the same orbit but moving in the opposite direction.
> The sand would be coming at your Laser at about 11 miles a second, per mass that
> would provide 120 times the energy of the best anti tank canon in the US arsenal.
>
>
If it were that easy (bolts? sand?) why would you need the lasers in the first place. You make it sound so easy to toss the little bombs in 'same but...opposite' orbit. Whadya gonna do, toss 'em from the ISS, and then put little rockets in them to line them up in a proper orbit. Run a calculation to figure out the energy required to get any amount of mass going in a 'retrograde' orbit. You'd pay for a couple of Space Lasers just getting a bucket of bolts heading in that direction.
Bob Trask
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