Radiation & Meteorite Deteriorate on Hull while traversing Space

How does a craft drifting thru space over the years, avoid all hull deterioration or breaches?

NASA had some major incidents with meteorites (not manmade spacejunk?) damage on ISS sometimes a yearly basis and in between countless minor dings - despite having done a couple dozen maneuvers away in the past couple decades.

Last Feb, Musk announced his SpaceX Tesla car and Starman driver duo exceeded Mars orbit and were 'headed into the Asteroid Belt.

Over a year layer, SpaceX livestream footage shows no issues with radiation nor asteroids, meteorites, micrometeorites, whatsoever! W

Would not be surprised if its trajectory is somehow changed(?!) again to say its no longer headed into a field of collosal debris. Imagine the footage though! In either case. Whether nears asteroids, or gets through a sun orbit without a deterioration nor scratch.

Anyways, how is this possible folks - esp with no ability to steer away from all micro/meteorites indefinitely whereever it actually is - luck?

"live footage"

Protip: Just because a YouTube stream is live, does not mean the video is live.

a reply to: Artesia
Space is just that..... largely nothing.
Chances of be hit by a meteor or micrometeor are pretty low.

You do realise that this stream was recorded a year ago and is now played on loop 24/7, right?

There is also a Bob Ross 24/7 stream with him drawing - do you think he is still alive and held as slave to draw for us every day 24/7 since years?

Apparently, they currently use a Whipple Shield.

In the 1940s, Fred Whipple proposed a meteoroid shield for spacecraft, called the Whipple shield in recognition of his contribution. The Whipple shield consists of a thin, aluminum “sacrificial” wall mounted at a distance from a rear wall. The function of the first sheet or “BUMPER” is to break up the projectile into a cloud of material containing both projectile and BUMPER debris. This cloud expands while moving across the standoff, resulting in the impactor momentum being distributed over a wide area of the rear wall (Figure 2). The back sheet must be thick enough to withstand the blast loading from the debris cloud and any solid fragments that remain.

In updated versions of this design, says NASA, “bulletproof” Kevlar or other materials are placed between the outer sacrificial wall and the inside plate.

So armor plating... Not as hi-tech as I had hoped.

a reply to: Elton

I saw a neat video the other day demonstrating this concept- apparently tanks in late ww2 started doing this as well... thin easy to penetrate armor plating spaced a few inches or feet away from the primary plate.

The video did this with a 3/8 mild steel plate, and used circular saw blades placed in front of it- then a rifle was fired at the blade. The difference in penetration on the 3/8 plate was astounding. the "whipple shield" weakens the projectile significantly.

a reply to: Artesia

There isn't any Livestream on the Tesla anymore.

For extremely large distances in space, there are many options.

Send a dummy craft in front of the main craft, to take any debris in the path.

Have a "shield" of exhaust. (As long as net force remains where you're trying to aim it, as higher than any shielding exhaust, you can have exhaust on the side or front of your craft.)

Whipple (Dummy shield, but with less of a budget)

A craft made of self repairing material.

Laser shoot incoming projectiles.

Just a big big big thick armor plating.

Yolo - No shield