On Monday, February 19, 2018 at 2:42:37 PM UTC-5, Thomas Koenig wrote:   
      
   >    
   > No armor is infallible - just use bigger, harder projectiles.   
   >    
   > > By the way, a few hundred pounds of kitty litter will   
   > > abrade the living shit out of that kind of armor, softening it up   
   > > for the metal/explosive bits which cost way more money.   
   >    
   > The cost of, let's say, steel balls is reather low. I'm assuming   
   > that shipping something into space is probably more expensive   
   > than the few dollars you save on the material itself. Also, if   
   > you can ablate armor, why not penetrate it in the first place?   
   ...   
   > Alternatively, if you plan to stick around, you could try ice   
   > or dry ice pellets. They would evaporate over time, but their   
   > mechanical strenght would be much lower than that, for example,   
   > of steel.   
      
   One of the better projectiles is colloidal gold. Gold is dense so it can   
   penetrate.  Gold can be made into particles a few nano meters diameter or any   
   size larger.  You could select the optimum radius for the target(s) and your   
   impact velocity.  You can    
   also make rods and various shapes so that the impacts vary between deep and   
   broad or do both. A 10 micron radius gold particle can create a hole much   
   larger than 10 microns. That is enough to allow gases and liquids to leak.  It   
   also coats the surface of    
   the hole with a gold film which can short circuit electronics.  One kilogram   
   of gold as 10 micron radius particles gives you 12 billion projectiles.  1   
   millimeter gold (or uranium) particles should be able to defeat the impact   
   bumpers on the    
   international space station.    
      
   The laser system needs to be powered.  If the station uses a nuclear reactor   
   you still need radiator panels to remove heat.  Low earth orbit has a cross   
   section of around 10^13 meters.  A 1000 square meter surface should get hit on   
   average once per orbit    
   if there are 10 billion objects to pass.  Particles in a reverse orbit will   
   pass multiple times per hour.    
      
   Regardless of how you fight a war in space the lower orbits will have a   
   serious case of Kessler syndrome.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)