Could Jello be the perfect material to shield space craft?

The list of tech that we are trying to develop for long-term manned missions in space is long. Rightly so- ask an expert, and they'll probably agree that everything in space is trying to kill you. We need tech to survive even a few moments in space, and unless we improve some fundamental aspects of Aerospace engineering, spacecraft and equipment will continue to have a relatively short shelf life.
One particularly annoying problem that engineers are trying to solve is a two- part problem:

• We have a buttload of space- junk and microscopic debris in orbit,
• We haven't really perfected shielding technology for our spacecraft.

Among science-fiction enthusiasts, the proposed solution is to develop a repulsing field around a craft to redirect space debris and keep spacecraft intact. With the exception of a few ultra-brainy scientists searching for mono-poles and studying the weirder aspects of electromagnetism, it's safe to say we just aren't there yet. So, NASA and the ESA are actively looking to reduce the amount of space junk endangering LEO and Geosynchronous craft.

What if there was a way to neutralize space-junk while testing a shield?

I spent several weeks combing over creative ideas to tackle to the space-junk problem. All of the seemingly obvious solutions had the same problem: objects in space don't move the same way as on earth. Seems like an obvious statement, until you realize that all the "solutions" you've come up with are based on a bias toward the way you've observed Newtonian physics at work. In space, transfer of energy in a collision (change of trajectory) is very different than on earth where atmospheric friction and gravity constantly slow and stop moving objects.
For example, a sort of dragnet to collect debris could easily send objects bouncing out of the net and whizzing around.... creating a giant hazard for nearby craft and space agencies that have to track those moving objects. There's also the real possibility that the force of high speed objects impacting the net would either destroy the net, or destroy the equipment mounting that net to a satellite or other craft.
Trying to use magnetism to retrieve larger individual objects or "catch" smaller debris as it passes seemed like another possible solution. After thinking about it, I realized that it was an obvious solution with limited usefulness. Not all space debris is ferrous. The space debris that is tends to be fairly large, which means that it's easiest to track and maneuver around. Smaller debris (which is the most dangerous) has such a high relative velocity that "catching" it as it passes would mean performing complicated maneuvers that would quickly deplete fuel and endanger the clean-up craft. Even "slow-moving" debris in space is generally whizzing around at the same speed as bullets- part of the reason that Agencies full of the best and brightest are still struggling to come up with good solution for orbital clean-up.

How Jello could solve the problem

A while after giving up on the space junk problem, I made a batch of Jello. I dropped my phone and it bounced right out of the bowl onto the floor, spitting out its battery and seriously pissing me off. After glaring at my phone for a minute, I thought back to the space- junk problem. I immediately started bouncing objects off the jello like a crazy person: quarters, marbles.... really all the small objects close enough to grab. Eventually I made a sort of slingshot to launch objects at a higher speed, thinking about the shape and velocity of random space junk.

Now, obviously Jello is not the ideal material to spend into space. I'm not that crazy. However, Jello has a number of physical properties ideal for a shielding material in space:

• It distributes kinetic energy throughout its mass.
• Rounded and irregular objects require a substantial amount of force to penetrate it.
• Jello quickly slows objects that penetrate it
• Projectiles become embedded in the jello

Now at first blush, this seems like too simple a solution to a complicated problem- until you look at the materials we designed to stop bullets here on earth. Ballistics gel, Kevlar, and Graphene body armor are all products designed to stop bullets. A combination of similar materials could be layered together to form a smart material capable of trapping space debris on impact.

The external skin would have to be composed of long chain polymers that are elastic in nature, but not resistant to puncture. This layer would serve as a pocket to deposit the gel material in, and to keep fragments of the gelatinous interior from flying off into space when an object impacts the shield. It would have to be resistant to heat, extreme cold, and not degrade in UV or become brittle in the cold.

The next layer would be a relatively thick layer of smart gel with several long chain polymers dispersed thinly throughout to increase its structural integrity. Increasingly dense layers of smart gel would be deposited between the external gel and a thick, Kevlar-like polymer skin. A final, thickly layered, folding Graphene shield would form the last layer of protection between the clean-up drone and the micro-debris it would be flying into.

The entire shield would have to be a self contained unit that cloud be deployed in space, and assembled and mounted by an on-board robot arm. The trick there would be to produce the folding Graphene shield, enveloped in the proper polymer skins. The smart gels would have to be deposited between layers of polymers using an aerosolized delivery method or by remotely releasing a catalyst to a precursor material included between the polymer skins.

Obviously I don't work for NASA, but I think it's an idea worth testing. Anyone know where a tinkerbug can find a material-sciences lab?