Dealing with ISS trash

On Apr 18, 2012, at 9:19 AM, Ian Woollard wrote:

> On 18 April 2012 06:55, Al Globus wrote:
>
> > On Apr 17, 2012, at 7:37 AM, brooksn wrote:
> >
> > > Well there are two options, either includes developing a mass
> > > launcher to dump the waste for extra lift.
> > >
> > Mass drivers accelerate very rapidly.
>
> No they don't.
>
Yes they do. O'Neill was able to get 100s of gs (or something on
that order) in a few meters with prototypes build in his lab. SEP,
which you refer to below, accelerate ions to 10s of thousands of m/s
>
> > That puts a lot of force on the station.
> >
> You know better than that Al, it's an electric propulsion system,
> there's
> not enough power for large forces.
>
A mass driver that throws trash is much different that a Solar
Electric Propulsion (SEP) system. SEPs, which are in use today,
accelerate ions to anywhere from 10,000-30,000 m/s. Ions have a lot
less mass than trash (many, many orders of magnitude) which is why the
total thrust is low.