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Posted (edited)

Hi,

 

Would it be possible to steer a potentially large (kilometers in diameter) icy body into orbit such that a small amount of atmospheric friction continuously bleeds its outer layer away a little at a time while slowing its orbit a little at a time until it finally evaporates away entirely, there never having been any catastrophic impact? Or does frictious orbital decay always occur faster than mass loss (leading to inevitable catastrophic impact)?

Edited by tjackson2112
Posted

There's surely a minimum size below which a typical ice ball would necessarily be evaporated away before getting to the ground from orbit. Assume a simple circular orbit, although eccentric orbits might be interesting too. Wonder what that minimum is, as a function of a starting orbital velocity and a height above ground with an atmospheric density sufficient to cause some small friction and begin the slow fall to Earth (or Mars maybe).

  • 2 years later...
Posted

And the melt begin, I should have added.  How else could you dump billions of gallons of water in a controlled way onto a dry world like Mars where moisture is needed in any process of terraforming?

I've never seen any science documentary entertain the theory.  If you have, please point me to it.

Thanks,

  Ted

  • 3 weeks later...
Posted
  On 2/26/2017 at 9:43 PM, tjackson2112 said:

Hi,

 

Would it be possible to steer a potentially large (kilometers in diameter) icy body into orbit such that a small amount of atmospheric friction continuously bleeds its outer layer away a little at a time while slowing its orbit a little at a time until it finally evaporates away entirely, there never having been any catastrophic impact? Or does frictious orbital decay always occur faster than mass loss (leading to inevitable catastrophic impact)?

Expand  

You could potentially use powerful lasers and ablation of icy body to provide thrust allowing it to maintain the orbit for a sufficient amount of time. It will require a lot of energy though.

Posted
  On 3/28/2019 at 2:59 PM, tjackson2112 said:

And the melt begin, I should have added.  How else could you dump billions of gallons of water in a controlled way onto a dry world like Mars where moisture is needed in any process of terraforming?

Expand  

If it's possible to get a loosely aggregated large icy body into low orbit, it might be possible to separate it with explosives into sufficiently small fragments to melt during entry. Any larger fragments could similarly be reduced in size.

Very speculative idea, and even if it becomes possible, any miscalculation could be disastrous.

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