From: mikkelhaaheim@gmail.com   
      
   Le jeudi 28 juillet 2016 19:02:23 UTC+2, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) a écrit :   
      
   >    
   >    
   > 	No. Minor -- and enough distance to be missed by any reasonable-sized    
   > hazard is minor -- deviations won't take them out of orbit, and they can    
   > maneuver BACK to orbit. Sure, if you keep firing huge salvoes in a way    
   > that they CAN'T, yes, you could drive them out of their original orbits    
   > permanently, but jebus, you'll be spending so many orders of magnitude    
   > more to shoot at them than they cost to put there that your opponent    
   > will be winning on pure economics.   
      
   Incorrect on two points (at least). The first is, it is incredibly expensive   
   to put large sensor platforms into orbit. Even relatively small Hubble and   
   Keppler sized telescopes are rare, because they are so expensive to launch,   
   let alone to try to place    
   in Earth polar orbits. Shooting from space is incredibly cheap, especially   
   since you don't have to worry much about the shells remaining intact.   
      
   >    
   > 	Firing shotgun-concentration loads of pellets to fill gargantuan    
   > volumes of space? No. Really, no, what the hell are you thinking? Let's    
   > leave aside the economic and practical problems of setting up your    
   > asteroid-sized shotgun loads, and note that the end result is you're    
   > going to be basically making the entire near-asset (with "asset" being    
   > "Earth or other area worth going to) space be filled with debris. We    
   > have enough trouble with low and medium-orbit debris as it is, if    
   > someone's firing gargantuan amounts of material at us, that's gonna make    
   > it a pain in the ass for everyone.   
   >    
   >    
      
      
   Actually, not so much. Objects in distant orbits are already going very fast.   
   The shells being discussed are small enough to easily achieve over 1000 km/s   
   delta-v, but even 5 km/s delta-v (achievable with current railgun designs   
   firing military shells...    
   I think those tested were on the order of 5 kg) would be sufficient to achieve   
   solar escape velocity. In other words, the shells will progress along   
   parabolic to hyperbolic paths, proceding to exit the solar system. Optionally,   
   the shells could be fired    
   against the direction of orbit, in which case the vector and reduced velocity   
   will likely result in the shells spiralling into the sun. For that matter, the   
   shells will continue to disperse, and larger shells can be detonated, reducing   
   the shells to dust.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)