Safe interplanetary flight routes...(?)

The article "40-Year-Old Mars Meteor Mystery Said Solved" ( www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060823_mars_mystery.html ) tells that it is supposed that the debris of comet D/1895 Q1 (Swift) damaged Mariner 4 a bit in the mid-sixties of the last century.

That probe randomly may have been very close to that former comet.

It reminds a bit to rock fall that can occur in the Alpes - there are traffic signs ammouncing that rock fall might happen.

So this would have to be an element in designing space traffic lines of least dangers.

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Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

Except for things like Saturn's rings and the Van Allen radiation belts, most space dangers don't stay in one place. (Ok, technically neither do they, except in a local frame of reference )

Your best bet is to feed your proposed trajectory into a computer and have it tell you if anything else will be in roughly the same place at the same time. Very small alterations in trajectory are usually enough to avoid dangers by a wide margin.

Of course, in deep space, good luck spotting meteorids ahead of time.

Best bet is to avoid passing through known comet "paths".

Most people still operate on the "space is big" theory of collision avoidance. That works for the most part in deep space, but in LEO debris is getting ugly.

Of course that is a topic for another thread.

- Alistair

What about looking for paths along which debris is flying that is left from comets died before astronomical observation by telescopes was started? Satellites orbiting the sun searching for them for example?



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)