ESA Plans to Test a Space Debris Clearing Satellite.

[SSgt Baloo]

From the article:

"Space junk is becoming a real problem.

"It’s a serious issue. There’s a common misconception that things in space are just kind of floating out there, moving slowly—and given videos of spacewalks and what we see in movies, that’s understandable.

"But it’s wrong. There are thousands of satellites orbiting the Earth, moving at incredibly high speeds. Note the plural, “speeds”; not everything is traveling at the same speed or in the same direction. Two objects moving at 25,000 kph in different orbits can have a relative speed of several kilometers per second. At that velocity, a fleck of paint can have a catastrophic impact."

_____

Cool! It's about time somebody decided to tidy up: LINK TO THE ARTICLE

[Kerbart]

This is why Squad needs to go in the satellite business. They have space-faring experience, and they can make things that crash automatically after five minutes, making the whole debris-problem non-existent.

[Gaarst]

Not gonna happen anytime soon: too expensive.

Current space launchers are currently too expensive to send stuff up there only to bring useless junk down. OR The space debris problem is not severe enough that one can put the effort into solving it right now. (Choose one)

[SSgt Baloo]

The fact that these studies are being made acknowledges that it is becoming less cost-effective to ignore the problem.

 

[Van Disaster]

13 hours ago, Kerbart said:

This is why Squad needs to go in the satellite business. They have space-faring experience, and they can make things that crash automatically after five minutes, making the whole debris-problem non-existent.

I would think the Kraken, having multiple flexible sticky appendages, would be a pretty good solution. I was always fond of a giant ball of sticky goo meandering around orbits absorbing stuff.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Van Disaster

[linkxsc]

Personally im for the laser idea.

The satellite or station would be a tad on the expensive side. But it can sit in 1 orbit. And at various points engage in the slowing of debris traveling in significantly different orbits whenevr they get close or in LOS.

Course if you tell people this they get visions of the death star and freak out. Much like microwave power for satellites and probes.

[Van Disaster]

Well, sufficiently destructive lasers would probably fall foul of treaties - that's a bit more of a concrete problem than people just freaking out. There's always ways of working out oversight of the project though, just like there's probably been things up there that shouldn't be.

[linkxsc]

2 minutes ago, Van Disaster said:

Well, sufficiently destructive lasers would probably fall foul of treaties - that's a bit more of a concrete problem than people just freaking out. There's always ways of working out oversight of the project though, just like there's probably been things up there that shouldn't be.

Who said anything about destructive? Most laser concepts rely on heating the surface of the targe enough so tiny bits vaporize and thrust the object retrograde. 

This actually wouldnt require that powerful of a laser. And definitely not anything that could penetrate the atmosphere and damage things.

[Van Disaster]

If you can break up dead satellites, you can break up active ones too, that's the problem, not planetary destruction systems.

[linkxsc]

You're not breaking them up though. And antisatellite missiles seem more practical.

[SinBad]

This: Planetes

I vote for this.

Either that or once ever 20 years we declare an international debris cleanup year. we first build a bunch of replacement satelites with more modern tech, and get them ready for launch. Then we lob a bunch of nukes up there on new years eve, and set them all off at midnight (as decided by the largest contributors time zone) vaporising everything thats currently up there. We then spend a global week in reflection on how greatful we are for the space industry now that we have nothing in orbit. Im thinking 1950's style home dinners, singing telegrammes, local news and playing outside. This gives us enough time to finalise launch preparations and co-ordinate schedules (and for the glowing cloud of plasma to cool down an disperse). Then we spend the rest of the year putting everything back up as fast as we can, and starting new programmes with all of the funding generated by renewed public interest. Win win.

[linkxsc]

Sounds a little extreme.^

[Van Disaster]

11 hours ago, linkxsc said:

You're not breaking them up though. And antisatellite missiles seem more practical.

You don't need to break up a sat to disable it, burning a hole in the right place would do it. Can you imagine if a rogue of whatever sort started disabling GPS?

[Shpaget]

12 hours ago, SinBad said:

This: Planetes

I vote for this.

Either that or once ever 20 years we declare an international debris cleanup year. we first build a bunch of replacement satelites with more modern tech, and get them ready for launch. Then we lob a bunch of nukes up there on new years eve, and set them all off at midnight (as decided by the largest contributors time zone) vaporising everything thats currently up there. We then spend a global week in reflection on how greatful we are for the space industry now that we have nothing in orbit. Im thinking 1950's style home dinners, singing telegrammes, local news and playing outside. This gives us enough time to finalise launch preparations and co-ordinate schedules (and for the glowing cloud of plasma to cool down an disperse). Then we spend the rest of the year putting everything back up as fast as we can, and starting new programmes with all of the funding generated by renewed public interest. Win win.

It would certainly solve the problem of space debris, since the all the EMPs would throw the humanity a few hundred years back and we'd have no use for satellites anyway.

[kerbiloid]

18 hours ago, Van Disaster said:

I would think the Kraken, having multiple flexible sticky appendages, would be a pretty good solution.

Solution... Afraid, those debries will overload the 3d-engine and cause a Kraken System Fault.