Whipple Shield: Hypervelocity Micrometeoroid Impact

Space colony and space station hulls face a constant hazard that has nothing to do with radiation or life support: millimetre-sized orbital debris and micrometeoroids arriving at kilometres per second. This simulator models the Whipple shield — the spaced double-wall design used on real crewed spacecraft — by firing a projectile at a thin outer bumper plate, shattering it into an expanding cone of debris, and checking whether the spread-out impact survives a rear wall placed a chosen standoff distance behind it. Adjust projectile size, impact speed, standoff gap and wall thickness, and toggle the bumper off entirely to see how much worse a direct hit on a single unshielded wall really is.