How do satellites and astronauts not get obliterated by objects (rocks, debris) in space?

Question

I would imagine space being filled with objects being hurled everywhere. And when objects are moving miles per second, wouldnt any object, let alone big rocks or small bullet sized rocks cause extensive damage to satellites and astronauts? How would anyone survive this? Or is there zero debris in space? No objects flying around at all?

Answer 1

For one the debris field around Earth isn't very dense so it's not like they're out in a hail storm or anything.
For another most of the debris is smaller than a ball bearing. Anything large is tracked by the government and the astronauts do not go outside if there is a large group of objects nearby.
Lastly Kevlar, the stuff that they make bullet-proof vests out of, was originaly invented for use in space suits. The Space Station is wrapped in a blanked of ceramic fabric called Nextel which is backed by Kevlar. The wondows are double paned and quite resistant to impacts. Also when they are not being used some of the windows are covered by metal shutters.

Answer 2

There is some danger, but space is amazingly big and the distance between the hurtling objects is amazingly large. It is really impossible, without doing math, to get a feel for how really empty space is. the objects are just so far apart that the chances of something as small as a space craft running into one are very small.

Recall the scene in Star Wars where they fly through an asteroid field. There are hundreds of asteroids and the space ship has to dodge them all the time. In the real asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, there are many thousands of asteroids, but they are so far apart that you could fly right through the belt and never get close enough to any of the asteroids to see one.

Answer 3

There is lots of space out there to roam in. Most of the stuff in orbit is moving in the same direction sort of, plus there is the variable of altitude...space flight is three dimensional.

There is also government agencies that track virtually everything orbiting the planet...and advising on collision avoidance vectors. In other words if they see something coming to close to an orbiting craft they tell NASA or whoever to move up or down to avoid the space junk.

That being said collisions do occur...Russia's MIR was hit more than once.

Answer 4

there is debris in space, and it does hit satellites and astronauts. however, most are dust-sized particles that are stopped by the protective layers on satellites ant the space suits of astronauts. the larger particles do occasionally hit, but these events are rare since larger objects are tracked on earth and monitored so that satellites can be slightly repositioned to avoid them.

Answer 5

Norad tracks space debris and they raise or lower orbits to avoid known possible collisions with objects of certain sizes

the shuttle routinely gets hit by dust sized particles

google shuttle and debris, ive seen pics of the windows after returning and they are often scratched from said hits.

http://www.timesherald.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1672&dept_id=33380&newsid=7150352&PAG=461&rfi=9

Answer 6

There isn't enough debri yet to be a huge danger. But the danger is not insignificant either. The risk is measurable and growing rapidly as we launch more and more debri into orbit.

The problem is serious enough that there have been many studies on it. And there is even a newsletter on it.

Answer 7

more suitable than 9000 products of area debris is orbiting in area about 5500 a lot of it. area debris has change right into a transforming into difficulty in recent times, on the grounds that collisions at orbital velocities ought to correctly be surprisingly detrimental to functioning satellites and ought to also produce even more suitable area debris contained in the approach.

Answer 8

The density of junk out there is amazingly small. That means the probability of getting hit is very small. When the oxygen tank on Apollo 13 exploded, they thought they'd been hit by a meterorite!

Answer 9

anti rock paint