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Description
Something important I feel was glossed over in the original Orion's Arm article was the importance of the ionizing navigational laser at the prow of the ship. The massive multi-megawatt electro-laser and smartdust are the ship's primary defense against high-speed ablation and collisions. At 0.02c, a sand grain impacting the front of the ship will pack similar explosive force as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima; relativistic collisions suck! So to avoid damage at high speeds, a powerful UV/electro laser attempts to charge/iononize all lightweight particles in the ship's current flight path, allowing the ship's artificial magnetic field ship hopefully just push debris aside; larger objects the size of baseballs are simply ablated by the laser. Circulated by the ship's artificial magnetic field is a "cloud" of smartdust, or micro-machines designed to latch onto debris, magnetizing it and allowing it to be captured by the magnetic fields. In the case of even larger objects in the flight path of the ship, weaponized drones launched by the ship after reaching cruising speed are capable of engaging larger targets; these one-use drones carry bomb-pumped lasers and/or act as guided interceptors to deflect larger objects.

Description
Something important I feel was glossed over in the original Orion's Arm article was the importance of the ionizing navigational laser at the prow of the ship. The massive multi-megawatt electro-laser and smartdust are the ship's primary defense against high-speed ablation and collisions. At 0.02c, a sand grain impacting the front of the ship will pack similar explosive force as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima; relativistic collisions suck! So to avoid damage at high speeds, a powerful UV/electro laser attempts to charge/iononize all lightweight particles in the ship's current flight path, allowing the ship's artificial magnetic field ship hopefully just push debris aside; larger objects the size of baseballs are simply ablated by the laser. Circulated by the ship's artificial magnetic field is a "cloud" of smartdust, or micro-machines designed to latch onto debris, magnetizing it and allowing it to be captured by the magnetic fields. In the case of even larger objects in the flight path of the ship, weaponized drones launched by the ship after reaching cruising speed are capable of engaging larger targets; these one-use drones carry bomb-pumped lasers and/or act as guided interceptors to deflect larger objects.