Did their simulation cover what would happen if millions of tonnes of dust drift out of the unstable L1 point and into Earth orbit or release their PE/KE in the atmosphere?
The Kessler syndrome (also called the Kessler effect, collisional cascading, or ablation cascade), proposed by NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler in 1978, is a scenario in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit (LEO) due to space pollution is numerous enough that collisions between objects could cause a cascade in which each collision generates space debris that increases the likelihood of further collisions. In 2009, Kessler wrote that modeling results had concluded that the debr Willy Le...
I’m back after doing rough figuring for the energy release landing a freighter-sized barge, and… the comment I was going to reply to is gone? sigh
Okay, this is scaled up from the PE and KE needed for a Soyuz to ISS orbit . (I’m not going to redo grade 11 physics this afternoon.)
9,000 kg to ISS height = 3.32 x 1010 Joules.
Add 5x that for the orbital KE = 1.992 x 1011 Joules.
Scale it up to a 90,000 tonne freighter = 1.992 x 1015 Joules.
That’s about half the energy released by a 1 megatonn…
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