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After Texas’ blue wave, what happens to Elon Musk and SpaceX? “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now.” (arstechnica.com)
submitted 1 week ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 2 points 1 week ago (3 children)

A variant of the first bullet is another option: put something in orbit going in the opposite direction, then release a few dozen ball bearings in the path of Elon's data center. Closing speed is something on the order of 100 km/hr. That should do just fine.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago

    Trying to put something in reverse orbit is even more difficult and requires a much more powerful rocket. Normal orbits follow the same direction as the earth's rotation, because that allows you to take advantage of the earth's already-existing rotational speed to give you a head start on achieving enough speed to reach orbit.

    Putting something into reverse orbit (while possible) is significantly more difficult, because now the earth's rotation is working against you. It has been done a few times, but it's significantly more expensive and difficult to achieve, which is going to be a problem for amateurs trying to shoot down a space station.

    Anyway, the difference between orbital velocity and a (relatively stationary) rocket that has been fired straight upward will be plenty of speed difference to cause lots of damage on impact.

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