100 Ways to Die in Space – # 7 Collisions

Welcome to 100 Ways to Die in Space

Hi there bloggies, welcome to a new and fun little feature – 100 ways to die in space. Taking inspiration from a million ways to die in the west I’ll be taking a somewhat tongue in cheek at the many and various ways that space is somewhat unkind to the average human being and it pretty effective at killing them very quickly. Step aboard and see what happens, just don’t come on wearing a red top!

Method 6 – Colliding with Something

The universe is a kind of contradiction, it’s really empty and yet – there’s stuff in it too. In order to get anywhere in the vastness of space it’s no secret that you have to be moving fast, like really fast. Yes faster than a politician moving to avoid their responsibility even. When this is mixed with a messy universe that spread out debris all over the place much of which moves in it’s own way and is possibly unmapped is that collisions are possible. This kind of incident comes under things bumping into each other, specifically though the human(s) are moving and they have hit some object that’s been merrily doing it’s thing for billions of years.

It’s not hard to imagine the scenario, there you are moving along in your rather cool and well equipped spacecraft sipping on some Earl Grey to pass the time. In your hurry to get to where you’re going an unmapped object is suddenly in your path. Yes in this vastness the universe has decided to have a laugh at the expense of your mortal coil. Sure if you spot it in time you can manoeuvre out of the way. But as I said the spacecraft you’re on is moving very fast, you don’t get chance to look at a display and call out ‘something ahead Captain’. What’s more likely to happen is you look up and in the millisecond between spotting said object and your brain computing this – that’s it.

I mean that’s just a large object, but even a grain of rice sized object – something that couldn’t possibly be seen will shatter the structure of the craft that’s carrying the precious humans or the technology inside it. It’s not a problem to take lightly even in the relatively slow speeds of low Earth orbit the thousands of pieces of human detritus are travelling a speeds that would mean a small object would shatter anything it hits.

So keep a look out and avoid floating human poo!

© Simon Farnell 2013 – 2023

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