Euro Space Agency Calls for Space Junk Cleanup

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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What goes up must come down…or does it? Junk is junk and getting rid of it is always a costly endeavor, especially when the junk in question is in Earth orbit. Findings from the 6th European Conference on Space Debris were agreed upon by consensus of the 350 representatives of space agencies and related industries concerning the importance of removing the thousands of pieces of space junk dating back to the infancy of the space age.

The new Clean Space initiative includes maturing technology to approach, capture and deorbit targets – a mission is already under study. Clean Space will also develop techniques to mitigate the problem, such as passive and active deorbiting devices and the means to ‘passivate’ retiring satellites.
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lets feed the millions of starving people in the world with the first world left overs first then we can look into large electro-magnets in space.

problem with collecting space debris or shooting it with lasers is that it make more space junk or more free floating dangerous objects.
 
BladeVenom said:
Shoot the debris down with lasers.
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Congrats, you just turned a big piece of space debris that can easily be tracked into hundreds if not thousands of tiny "bullets" scattered everywhere that can't be tracked with today's technology.

The most cost effective, and possibly the quickest and easiest approach that some scientist are suggesting is to build a giant magnet on Earth that can be focused on a precise location and have it pull the objects into the atmosphere to burn up.
 
Every time I hear of space junk cleanup all I picture is a space shuttle with a giant vacuum attachment. :D

It definitely is a problem though. All this stuff gets in the way of any launches or other space travel. Even a tiny bolt floating being hit by the space shuttle or other vehicle can cause serious damage.
 
too bad its space, with that vaccum it'd be pretty difficult to have a huge furnace to burn all that debris, otherwise that could generate some power with it
 
That and a vacuum would not actually work in space since there's no air to suck on, to cause objects to then get sucked in. Unless they can make a vacuum powered by a black hole. :p
 
Uberazza said:
problem with collecting space debris or shooting it with lasers is that it make more space junk or more free floating dangerous objects.
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Yeah but a screw hitting you at 20K mph will do a lot more damage than a few flecks of metal hitting you.
 
Just have two space shuttles with a giant space net™ trawl it up and then hurl it toward the sun.
 
Stiler said:
Just have two space shuttles with a giant space net™ trawl it up and then hurl it toward the sun.
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im pretty sure that would cost in the tens of billions of dollars to make it effective. Magnets win, although i dont think that would be viable either. It could even cost hundreds of billions. Just imagine a space shuttle trying to pick up trash for years. Lots of fuel and maintence. Plus it would not be possible to keep it running that long in space without return trips back home. :rolleyes:
 
Chunder said:
Congrats, you just turned a big piece of space debris that can easily be tracked into hundreds if not thousands of tiny "bullets" scattered everywhere that can't be tracked with today's technology.

The most cost effective, and possibly the quickest and easiest approach that some scientist are suggesting is to build a giant magnet on Earth that can be focused on a precise location and have it pull the objects into the atmosphere to burn up.
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The laser method is probably one of the best ways to deal with it. They're working on using lasers to adjust its trajectory/speed in an attempt to move it, upto 100m in 24 hours.
 
Stiler said:
Just have two space shuttles with a giant space net™ trawl it up and then hurl it toward the sun.
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Nope.
1. An object is in orbit when its traveling so fast that it's effectively falling around the Earth. The space junk is traveling at 15,500+ miles-per-hour.

2. Changing your speed changes the shape of your orbit. If the space shuttles/net were in an identical orbit with the junk they would be traveling at the same speed as the junk. Space is a big place, the likelihood of accidentally intercepting junk is low. You have to do a pre-planned interception (basically dive down or up) on every piece of space junk, and you'd have to slow down while approaching the junk to avoid tearing a hole in the net (there would be a speed difference of hundreds of meters per second on approach).

3. Assuming you could net the junk, it would be far cheaper to slow it down and let it fall back to Earth than to accelerate it to Earth escape velocity.

Go play Kerbal Space Program if you want to learn about orbital mechanics.
 
Jesus I wasn't being serious, thought more people could take the hint of sarcasm lol.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Yeah but a screw hitting you at 20K mph will do a lot more damage than a few flecks of metal hitting you.
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If a screw comes into orbit, I think it'll burn up long before it hits earth. Though, I guess it might hit an airplane... maybe.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Yeah but a screw hitting you at 20K mph will do a lot more damage than a few flecks of metal hitting you.
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Something with as little mass as 1/10th a gram (1/25th the mass of a penny) can still do bullet-on-earth type damage traveling at those speeds.
 
Uberazza said:
lets feed the millions of starving people in the world with the first
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And then those people, primarily in Africa, will continue to have 7.2 children per woman, who will now have a higher survival rate.

In fifty years, you will then have four times the population to feed that still can't feed themselves.

Congradulations, you just made things worse.
 
A better idea is to make the space debris fall on the most unsustainable overpopulated places on the planet, which would be good for the environment and help reduce our overconsumption of limited resources.
 
Ducman69 said:
And then those people, primarily in Africa, will continue to have 7.2 children per woman, who will now have a higher survival rate.

In fifty years, you will then have four times the population to feed that still can't feed themselves.

Congradulations, you just made things worse.
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Just as long as you aren't the one doing the starving, right?
Go troll alsewhere.
 
what wereally need to do is clean out oceans from all that tiny plastic.
 
This is just like losing a helium balloon (outdoors). You see it floating up and there's nothing you can do to get it back.

Sometimes you walk after it for a while, foolishly thinking that it might float back down, or get caught in a building or something....but of course that will never happen:(
 
Magnus said:
Just as long as you aren't the one doing the starving, right?
Go troll alsewhere.
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Its called consequences and reality. You simply can't feed a population that insists on having so many babies, its simple math. There are no natural predators, and diseases like AIDS aren't that catastrophic. So the more food you send over, the worse you make the problem. This is pretty basic conservationism that we understand and practice for the benefit of other species and their environment in the wild, but for some reason go "full retard" when people are involved.

Regarding feeding myself, I chose not to have seven children I can't feed, in fact I chose to have zero even though I'm in my 30s, because the world is overpopulated enough as it is. Action, reaction, consequences... pretty basic stuff here.

So funding orbital trash removal solves a problem, sending that money to Africa does not and in fact CREATES an unsolvable problem for future generations.
 
Magnets and space drones. Drones can work together to move larger pieces. That would be fun.
 
The magnet idea will probably work a lot better once we start building satellites out of steel.
 
The laser idea would work, but it would take a very long time.

You want to hit the object in the front or top relative to it's trajectory.

The impact point will out-gas, and give it a little shove in the opposite direction of impact. The laser doesn't slow it down, the eruption at the impact site does.

No further debris other than gasses would be created by a laser pulse, and solar panels would load up capacitors to fire the laser.

But it would take a LONG ass time except for small objects.
 
Most the satellites we see now are carbon fiber. Very little metal in them, then the metal is al or ti.
 
BladeVenom said:
Shoot the debris down with lasers.
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Chunder said:
Congrats, you just turned a big piece of space debris that can easily be tracked into hundreds if not thousands of tiny "bullets" scattered everywhere that can't be tracked with today's technology.

The most cost effective, and possibly the quickest and easiest approach that some scientist are suggesting is to build a giant magnet on Earth that can be focused on a precise location and have it pull the objects into the atmosphere to burn up.
Click to expand...

Outamyhead said:
Targeting a grain of sand sized particle with a laser?
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Lasers are one of the the best methods. Lasers aren't quite like those out of star wars just yet, you aren't going to shoot something and have it blow up or break apart. It would take a satellite the size of a jumbo jet to hold a laser that would even come close to that kind of power. Using a ground based laser might be better.

As far as a giant magnet, what about all the other parts that aren't made of metal? There are all sorts of plastics and composites used in Satellite construction.
http://www.popsci.com/technology/ar...-small-plasma-rockets-remove-themselves-orbit
Instead, using a laser will be another means of pushing the debris out of orbit. You apply heat and light by bombarding one side of object with photons. The heat builds up until something melts and the thermal energy is radiated outward in a plasma jet. Any matter in the plasma jet will be vaporized, succumb to gravity, or could be vaporized with a second shot. It will take a very powerful laser to do this, but nothing that isn't within current capabilities. The bigger problem will be the targeting, tracking, and power required for such a setup.

For smaller pieces you could theoretically make sure the laser is in front of the target area, widen the beam and up the power as necessary (making sure other satellites aren't in the target area first). Laser hits debris field opposite of direction of travel, debris field slows, then succumbs to gravity and burns up in atmosphere. Smallest of pieces would simply vaporize. This is of course just a theory, it may not work.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
Nope.
2. Changing your speed changes the shape of your orbit. If the space shuttles/net were in an identical orbit with the junk they would be traveling at the same speed as the junk.
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True, but nothing says the shuttle + nets need to be at the same orbit, just the net needs to be the same orbit, attached to the shuttle via long rods, effectively putting the center of mass of the whole system in a lower (i.e. faster) orbit.

GaryJohnson said:
Something with as little mass as 1/10th a gram (1/25th the mass of a penny) can still do bullet-on-earth type damage traveling at those speeds.
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Well yeah, but a penny is more massive than a .22 bullet, so that's not exactly saying much, however give me 1/100th of a gram, or 100 times more massive than a grain of sand, and the momentum of something that small, even traveling very fast, isn't that much.
 
Chunder said:
Congrats, you just turned a big piece of space debris that can easily be tracked into hundreds if not thousands of tiny "bullets" scattered everywhere that can't be tracked with today's technology.

The most cost effective, and possibly the quickest and easiest approach that some scientist are suggesting is to build a giant magnet on Earth that can be focused on a precise location and have it pull the objects into the atmosphere to burn up.
Click to expand...

:rolleyes: You've watched too many sci-fi movies. Very few objects are going to blow up when hit by a laser.

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/423302/nasa-studies-laser-for-removing-space-junk/
 
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