How to use Interceptors to clear space garbage

In conflict, the point of the Interceptors coming down was to get rid of some of the “Garbage” in Earth orbit. There are only three ways of doing this. One; Nuke them with the missile, to totally vaporize them. Two; Attack them with cannons or other projectile weapons to destroy them, or at least break them into smaller pieces. Three; Attach a limpet rocket, or in someother manner cause their orbit to decay so that they reenter Earths atmosphere. Leaving aside the pure illogic of such an operation, we shall attemptto enumerate how the operation could be carried to a conclusion.

Obviously Number One is out since there were, and are, no official nuclear weapons in space. Even thought this is the most efficient method of reducing space junk, since it totally destroys anything that is not city sized. One does not have to worry about debris falling on anyone since there are nodebris.

SHADO would have to use NASA as a front if they wanted to use this method, and they would still face resistance from the Soviets and others, even if it was only a front to keep up appearances, to the militarization of space.

Of course by the time you maneuvered enough junk together into one area forit to be blasted, to make the use of a nuclear device worth it, you couldhave used the effort to deorbit the stuff and let gravity and air frictiondo the job for you. Even if some of the junk survived reentry, you would at least have a very good ideal of where it would land.

Using cannons or some other form of projectile weapons would work in the sense that the impacts would either destroy/break up the item, or at the veryleast start it into a decaying orbit if you did the attack from the right direction.

This form of attack would be easier on the Interceptor pilots since it would not require any space walking, and the interceptors own targeting scanners could target the items, without aid from SID or MoonBase.

Of course, we all “know” that Interceptors don’t carry any cannons orother armaments other then the nuclear missile, since they have never beenfilmed using them. Just as we have never seen any film of just how they get into the interceptor in the first place.

One could use the landing skids of an interceptor to “Push” an item outof orbit if one were very careful, not to mention lucky. More likely wouldbe an impact with the mail body of the interceptor, with the object recoiling off of the ship in an unpredictable trajectory. I guess that you could control the trajectory to a certain extent by “bouncing” the item off of the bottom of the ship, as well as one or both of the landing gear, to direct it in a “Downward” motion thus causing its orbit to decay.

Three is the way that would attract the least amount of unwanted attention,but would require a space walk, since there are no manipulator arms on theinterceptors to use from the inside of the ship. You would have to unseal your cockpit and go EVA. Of course you would need to wear something more then the normal uniform to do this.

Once you were outside of the ship, you would attach a limpet rocket to eachitem, or grouping, and then have it send the items into an unsteady orbit so that they would eventually fall back into the atmosphere.

It seems obvious to me that since you might as well save some money and just haul them “Downward” with a rope rather then waste rockets. You would use a magnetic harpoon when possible, and then just reel in the item and shove it downward into a new orbit. You could even tie a number of items together or use large nets, and the tow the items into a fast decaying orbit.

Any and all of these plans would require close coordination from NORAD to track the new orbits and make sure that they were actually unstable and would cause reentry of the items. Until they actually did reenter, they would be a danger to all Low Orbit Satellites since their base speed would be unchanged, or perhaps even increased by the attempt to deorbit them. And as we all know, it isn’t really the bulk of the item that gets you, it is the mass times its current kinetic energy that does 94 percent of the impact damage in collisions.
It would be cheaper to have a Orbiter of some kind go up, and then use thatcrew to gather up all of the junk, and either bring it back in the cargo bay, or start it on a long journey into the atmosphere. There is really no logic in using Interceptors to do any of this.


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