Could an astronaut in a near-future space ship survive transit through our asteroid belt?

In the near future we may find cargo ships fleeing space pirates!

Given that...

• It's a small cargo ship carrying 10 metric tons of wheat (cargo volume, approximately 13 m³). Total volume: 100 m³. Total mass (loaded): 30 metric tons.

• Thruster technology is such that the ship can successfully maneuver through Sol's asteroid belt at an average velocity of 1,000 Km/s.

• It's near-future, so there's no magical intertial dampening systems. Flight pressure suits we have today are OK. Any other dampening systems known and operative today or conceivably within the next 25 years are OK.

• Knowing that today we believe all the mass in the remarkably large asteroid belt wouldn't make a body bigger than our moon...

• And assuming at 1,000 Km/s even a baseball-sized impact would have serious consequences¹...

Question: Could our astronaut survive two hours of space flight (a run of 7,200,000 Km or 180X the circumference of the Earth) inside the asteroid belt without dying from the maneuvers necessary to avoid impacts?

After two hours the pirates make a mistake, take an impact dead center of the windshield, and due to the force of explosive decompression, find themselves hurtling deeper into the belt like little human torpedoes. Our hero can slow down and avoid all future impacts.

_{¹ Obligatory XKCD, not completely relevant, but the end result gives us an idea of the urgency of the situation.}

posted about 6 years ago

JBH‭

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