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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!LRC.Slocum@UTEXAS-20.ARPA
From: LRC.Slocum@UTEXAS-20.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Space debris
Message-ID: <13473@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 8-Nov-83 10:38:55 EST
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.13473
Posted: Tue Nov  8 10:38:55 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Nov-83 06:45:12 EST
Lines: 12

From:  Jonathan Slocum <LRC.Slocum@UTEXAS-20.ARPA>

One of the bigger problems with space debris (re: a stalk/elevator) is that
the thing will be moving at orbital velocity at only one point along its
entire length.  Even assuming everything else out there were also in an
equatorial orbit, the collision velocities could be very high indeed.

But, of course, hardly anything else IS in an equatorial orbit, so there is
no possibility that the stalk/elevator could "sweep clean" its orbital path,
except in the degenerate case: sooner or later, almost EVERYTHING would
intersect its path.  The few exceptions are easy enough to imagine.
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