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Comment by zippyman55 | Hacker News Reader

I’m seeking funding to open up a rail gun ranch where you can sit in your lawn chair and blow satellites out of the sky.

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Lasers would probably be more practical. Maybe a whole array of lasers w. telescopes? At (say) 500 km, a 20 cm aperture would have a spot size of maybe 50 cm. So let's take that telescope array, hook a kW laser to each one, and roast some LEO satellites?

(Note: this is not an actual suggestion this be done.)

I know you are joking on this one, as I was on mine. But with people being arrested for shining pet toy lasers at objects, best everyone stay clear of this one.

It's more a thought experiment on perhaps how easily this could be done.

Probably legal in Texas? If it's directly over "your land?"

If your application says it is meant to hunt feral hogs, then they will allow it.

Feral hogs IN SPAAAAACE!

This may be a good plan B pivot! Join now and get a free lawn chair!

I’m working on a DaaS startup (drone as a service) so maybe I’ll locate next to you and your customers can blow drones out of the sky and mine will keep having to replace theirs.

I like where you are going with this. Can you offer “hardened” drones for the advanced players?

Kessler‘s farm?

I'm thinking of "space roombas" that glide around and bump all the sats in LEO into the atmosphere like a game of pool

Only problem is they are toxic as they burn up and create a lot of pollution

* https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-space-orbit-satellit...

(too bad gravity is impossible to overcome cheaply or do the opposite and yeet into sun)

If you have to yeet space trash to a gravitational well, Jupiter is probably the more attractive option. Lower delta-V, still a large well, and so long as you get reasonably close, orbital decay should solve the problem eventually.

For de-orbiting LEO satellites, electrodynamic tethers is probably the most viable active method:

"Study on electrodynamic tether system for space debris removal"

<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00945...>

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