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Usernamenotta t1_ixm7kb2 wrote

The problem is the 'fishnet spyral'. Basically, imagine your 'laser shield' as a fishnet. No matter how many laserheads you are using, some particles will always go through. And if I misunderstood your idea and you meant something like having laser turrets to melt incoming particles, well, the chances of the turret to succeed in that are highly reliant on your sensors being able to pick up the particle in time and discern it from background noise.

For shielding, the most interesting shielding I've seen in Sci-Fi media is a combination of hard layered armoured hull, similar to what Soviet tanks like T-64 had for the front of the turrets; and then the ship being surrounded at a certain distance by a fluid armour. Something like a magnetic field or a gravitational field or something holding a very thick layer of dense metal (Like Mercury -Hg- or lead -Pb-) around the ship. Alternatively, the field could be made out of plasma or some very hot gasses to melt incoming particles and dissipate their energy. The logic would be that the exterior layer absorbs as much energy from kinetic strikes, either through density or through pressure variations, keeps it's shape. because it's fluid, and what's left from the impactor is dealt with by the armour of the ship.

Of course, this is not perfect shielding, even if you manage to pull it off. There's always the ancient problem (I mean, literally, from times of Antiquity if not pre-history) of how exactly are you going to see what lies in front of the shield without the enemy stabbing you in the face

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InternationalShake75 t1_ixoo2qb wrote

This is a good response here. I want to reiterate and emphasize the challenge of sensors and detectors "seeing" the incoming micrometeoroid.

If you know a thing is coming then you can prepare for it. But much of the challenge is detecting incoming ballistics. And thats really really hard to do. Things like lasers only work if you know where to point it. Sometimes you do, but most of the time you dont.

Think of it like a bullet could come from any direction. A laser could melt a bullet, but trying to line up the laser beam with an incident bullet path is crazy hard. So it's easier to just to put on a bullet proof vest.

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Usernamenotta t1_iyc9tfe wrote

Well, I mean, technically, with a powerful enough laser, you don't need to precisely aim it. You can use the same technique radars use and do 'sweeps', with the lasers going from right to left or up and down, or perhaps having multiple layers doing the same thing. But, as mentioned, you will still have some holes in the 'fishnet' even with this method. The best strategy is a layered defence. Kinetic protection is the most sound choice when it comes to singular impacts, but overtime it's going to fail due to multiple impacts and radiation exposure. Especially if you go for the traditional 'armor' ideea (liquid metal armour, while more Sci-Fi, at least prevents the forming of cracks).

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InternationalShake75 t1_iydm9k7 wrote

i suspect a laser disco ball concept is going to be way too power hungry, and that means it will be prohibitively massive with todays power technology.

The liquid metal armor idea isnt entirely scifi. Liquid armor already exists using non-Newtonian fluids. There are commercial products for motorcycle armor you can buy today. For Liquid metal armor, check out ferrofluid armor and the AFRL. Unfortunately, these arent worth the bang for the buck, in terms of protection versus mass compared to a traditional kinetic whipple shield.

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