Re: [GZG] Gzg-l Digest, Vol 37, Issue 25

On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 3:11 PM,  <gzg-l-request@mail.csua.berkeley.edu>
wrote:
>
> On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 10:34 PM, John Atkinson
<johnmatkinson@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I don't have a PhD in the subject, ...
>>
>
> Would it be the explosion proper or the rapidly expanding (and moving
> relative to the ships recent maneuvering) debris field?  Or do we
> assume that a GZG-verse ship can plow through that mess unhindered?

Do the math on 20,000 tons of steel distributed over the surface of
sphere 1000km in diameter.  Quick back-of-the-envelope calculations
suggests that the majority of the debries would be small enough, and
moving slow enough, that it would be essentially micrometeor levels of
damage, which should be more or less ignored.  There's always bad
luck, but given the levels of technology involved, killing or evading
meteors (whether natural or man-made) and shielding against
micrometors seems to be trivial.  Unlike missles, debris chunks
neither evade, nor are particularly stealthy, nor do they actively
produce ECM to avoid being shot down.

John
-- 
"Thousands of Sarmatians, Thousands of Franks, we've slain them again
and again.  We're looking for thousands of Persians."
--Vita Aureliani
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