Opinions on Debris

[Kilmeister]

When I started this game i used to absolutely litter LKO with debris. Now I take it into my design and or procedures to try and minimize it and try and deorbit all spent stages. It annoyed me in my last game in .22 where I had a big telescope in geosync orbit and everytime I went to go view through it I could see the last stage chilling a few hundred meters away. Since then I always put Ion Engines on the satelite to finalize a geosync orbit, and I leave enough fuel to deorbit the last stage engine.

[Merinsan]

I do everything possible to avoid debris. Even in interplanetary space.

During transfer burns I'll keep used up tanks until I get a collision with the target, then I drop the stage.

When going to orbit, all stages are dropped on a suborbital trajectory - wither with fuel, or using probes to deorbit (often with RCS)

Any debris that survives crashes, I manually delete.

So far, I haven't got any debris in orbit, but if I do it will need to be deorbited somehow, since I will not manually delete it. I will however delete debris that is in a decaying orbit.

[Spatzimaus]

All my current designs are zero-debris. I use SSTO spaceplanes, gigantic SSTO rocket boosters that deorbit themselves after delivering payloads, and all my space stations are lifted in single launches. The only debris in my game are a few spent boosters near the launch pad, left over from my first few generations of rockets. I'm also careful not to have any crashes or hard landings that'd leave debris on the ground.

Basically, an SSTO rocket booster is inefficient, but there's not much of a downside to just going bigger. I've got a 12000-ton SSTO rocket that lifts 900- to 1000-ton payloads; an asparagus booster for that payload might only weigh half as much, but it wouldn't gain me anything to do that. (Plus, SSTO rockets are just a lot easier to launch.)

[spacetortoise1]

I love it, I'm not having any performance issues. It's really cool to watch little specks fly by really fast, I always hope for collisions.

[ToTheWorld]

I always find it more satisfying to not leave any space junk when I can so I add an extra probe module at the top of my first stage so that I can come back to it once my final stages are safely in orbit and set it to retro-burn back into the atmosphere.

[samstarman5]

I do try to avoid leaving too much non-functional pieces in orbit, as that is just plain inefficient. However, now and then it does become necessary to take it to a trajectory where it will not re-enter the atmo nor impact. That is true with real life, as well. The Apollo program alone did a nice job of seeding Earth and Solar orbit with spent stages that they weren't able to otherwise impact into the Moon or burn up in Earth's atmosphere. When it comes to three-dimensional passage, there is an adage that if you miss by a foot, you pretty much missed by a mile, lending very little chance of impact with any orbiting space debris. It also pays to check the current sky before each launch as well, anyway. Any debris that comes within 72k of Kerbin I do destroy from the Tracking Station as it is deemed to have been in a position to fall within the atmosphere(which I know is at the 69-70k point, but I like to consider other factors outside of the game's control that work in my favor). Anything else that I can't otherwise de-orbit or send into solar orbit is left to the elements. Sometimes the Mun helps out, kicking it into a larger orbit or even into solar orbit itself. Either case, with KSP running smoother now, I don't see debris as too much a concern. If it does become such, I always make sure to equip my orbital stations with maneuvering units, and other craft tend to be able to move out of the way much faster.

Debris is a fact of life, and a consequence of sending staged craft into orbit and beyond. I say it stays.

[Zaryulenko]

After the failure of retrieving a single stage of junk from an orbit at 40km from my space station i decided to keep all the debris there because i think its nice to see a big stage that used to impulse a probably reentered piece of payload such as a communication or mapping satellite, Even a part of a old interplanetary vessel.

And because we cant send a rocket to retrieve some of the debris but i expect to have a decent SSTO to do that any time

Yesterday the 3rd stage of a Dynamo shuttle passed at 40km from my minmus lander, that 3rd stage was used to perform a complete circularization burn and S.S.C. (Space Station Calm) main rendezvous maneuvers.

It also was the failed to retrieve junk body.

[r4pt0r]

i wanted to watch some derbis re-enter once. it had a periapsis of 40km so i thought hey ill watch. it was a long thin fuel tank, the 200n engine, and 2 winglets on the top. it glided in for what felt like forever. finaly the engine hit the water and broke off. then i sat amazed as the tank and winglets proceded to rollercoaster up and down, gaining altitude each time, until finally reaching stable flight at 30km.

[Ravenchant]

Debris? As few as possible! I don't terminate anything that isn't either landed at Kerbin or a single part (like broken girders and such) on another celestial body, but with probe cores on everything and a bit of overengineering the orbits are still mostly tidy. The question is, for how long?

Early in career mode, before unlocking inline probe cores, I've made quite a mess with orbital injection stages for Mun landings. A few are still up there as a "memorial", the rest was deorbited using a scoop design. Two missions managed to deorbit six or seven stages. Never again! It's just too nerve-grating. Unless a Kerbal gets stranded up there, any debris created on accident are free to roam.

[toric5]

i will only leave debris on planetary surfaces. otherwise, i slam them into a planetary surface!

[somnambulist]

By design I minimize debris -- upper stages, fairings, etc are dropped while the periapsis is < 20 km; orbital insertion stages have a probe core and a rule reserve for deorbiting; and transfer stages either get slammed into the target body or sent into deep space. Any mistakes because of piloting or design are left in orbit. For purely RP aspects I try to drop spent launch stages in the ocean.

[Ascensiam]

I do all in my power to avoid littering, and if i do, i make special missions to make recoveries, it's highly entertaining.