Pun intended, but still a serious question.
Would a neutron matter? (Pun also intended, but also serious)
PBS SpaceTime has a great video about this topic (see @ ~7min to get your specific question)
Link with timestamp for the lazy: https://youtu.be/wdP_UDSsuro?t=420
It’s actually a legit concern with any (hypothetical) interstellar mission. Even hydrogen atoms will hit with significant force. Dust hits like nukes, and an asteroid is just game over.
The maxim used in a lot of sci-fi is an ablative armour plate. Often in the form of ice. Interstellar ships would likely aldo be needle like, to minimise their cross section. We could also use electric and/or magnetic fields to move smaller particles out of the way.
As for densities, I believe it’s a couple of hydrogen ions per m^3 . Dust is rarer, but still present. It’s only bigger rocks that are rare enough to just hope to avoid.
Didn’t one of the space shuttles almost holed by a fleck of paint?
The ISS has been pinholed by debris a few times. Likely paint. The shuttle was damaged by foam breaking off, amongst other events.
By comparison orbital velocity is around 7km/s, while a bullet is around 0.367km/s. Any mismatch will push debris up to bullet speeds easily.
As for relativistic speeds. C is 300,000km/s assuming you get up to 1/3C (barely relativistic) you are moving at 100,000km/s or 14,000x faster than the ISS moves, or 39000x faster than a bullet. A 10g rock would hit with 10kilotons of energy. About 2/3 the energy of the first atom. bombs.
Challenger had a fleck of paint damage one of its windows on an early mission.
This is why Star Trek’s Enterprise has that forward-facing deflector dish. It wouldn’t last very long without something to prevent such collisions.
How the hell did they think of everything in the 1960s? Like, their science is good.
Didn’t they have Arthur C Clark advising them or someone like that?
Yes. For the effects, look up pictures of the damage that space debris has on spacecrafts.
Mind to post your favourite example?
The fastest human made object moves at 1/1000 of the speed of light
Depends on the strength of your navigational deflector.
