Debris - Community Care Factor Poll

[magnemoe]

I try to avoid it, mostly in designing rockets so they do the last 2-400 m/s of circulate with the transfer stage. Some missions leave debris like the first mun and minus missions and Moho missions.

[Wahgineer]

I just go to the tracking station to get rid of it. May change come 0.24, when I have to take money into account.

[zarakon]

I avoid it when possible, but I'm not super careful about it

I don't get much debris in LKO, but I'll sometimes have boosters that I drop off during a burn away from Kerbin

[ArmchairGravy]

I do a mix. If I can get stuff to drop cleanly then I'll drop them even if there's a bit of fuel left. Refueling tankers I de-orbit. Big stuff I send deep leaves a debris wake that I clean up from KSP. Debris that's leaving the system stays in so I can see where it ends up.

[MKI]

I have a station in orbit designed to house missile to "de-orbit debris"

But its not fully functional yet so the sky is slowly filling up with deadly objects Haha.

[NGTOne]

Well, I do 3 primary kinds of missions:

1. Monolithic: Single-launch, single-purpose. All lifter components are sub-orbital and are left to impact the ground. Anything that leaves Kerbin orbit tends to stay there (though I try not to leave debris around the Mun, because that's a common destination for me). Not all pieces come back home, but those that don't are left to drift in solar orbit.

2. Multi-part: Multiple launches, multiple components, assembly on-orbit: Each component has a "construction frame" stage, which is basically an orbital maneuvering system and structural bracing. The component might be inert, or a set of fuel tanks, or even a set of engines. The component is attached to the ship, and the construction frame is deorbited. Like before, not every piece of the mission (if it's an exploration ship) will come back to Kerbin, and those that don't are left to drift. I like to leave the primary components in solar orbit, as memorials to the mission.

3. Specialized: If I'm launching a more unusual piece of hardware, such as a building or a large rover, I try to keep my LKO clean, but I tend to leave a wake of components outside of LKO, and especially around the target body. Colony hardware especially tends to be messy after landing (as my colonies lean towards "rather large"), so I designate a "junkyard" area a few km from the primary colony site, which I use as a landing area/disposal site for unnecessary/broken hardware. KAS tends to be rather useful for moving broken/spent stuff to it.

However, I never terminate a piece of debris. If it's up, I either leave it or bring it down.

[Pthigrivi]

Im pretty neurotic about this haha. Ive got a few bits ditched in interplanetary space but nothing near kerbin. Everything is deorbited and chuted for re-use. I even built a big spacebroom rig one time when some lower-stage boosters accidentally made into orbit.

[Amaroq]

I'm compromising my ideal for performance. In practice what I have is:

Slider low, but not off.

I design lifters such that my lift stage runs out of delta-V while its Periapsis is still just barely atmospheric, and ditch fairings, etc, at the same point in the launch so that either a.) the game de-clutters them by itself, or b.) I can declare "burned up in re-entry" and delete the debris without worry.

I periodically "clean up" my save-file by hand-edit, typically removing any of the following:

1. Debris which should be subject to atmospheric drag at periapsis

2. Debris which is crash-landed on any surface* .. (save "museum" pieces)

3. Decoupler debris (e.g., those "separator" rings, etc., which I rationalize as "self-consuming at use.")

4. Tiny accidental debris (single-part for which the odds of it coming into play are minimal)

For anything larger, I typically mount it with at least a docking port, and often a command pod. I'll "rename" it to debris, but leave it out there, and either get to cleaning it up, or deal with the clutter.

I've still never even had a near-miss with an active craft -- in practice even a minor difference in inclination or eccentricity all but guarantees no-impact.

[TranquilTempest]

I keep standard parking orbits clean, but transfer orbits have some debris.

[justidutch]

I've got about 170 pieces of debris in orbit, most around 80K. I am too impatient to worry about 'clean' designs or clean up missions. I have had two collisions with debris on missions when trying to circularize after liftoff, and found it quite impressive and hilarious! Since then I boost up to 90K before starting to stabilize orbit. Not as efficient, but the price I have to pay for my prior carelessness.

I'm thinking when I start a new career save when .24 comes out I will change my principles to account for debris management. I will keep persistent debris on, and not magically clean up from the tracking station, the more realism the better for me.

[kiwiak]

I love debris. Seriously.

Its like a trophy, when i switch map to debris view i see all remnnts of my early space progrm missions, its so nostalgic.

So, i never clean up.

[Daddy Cecil]

What is this "waste collection" in space you speak of? I am a true orbital litterbug, usually leaving upper/transfer combo stages in orbit, and my heavy SSTO lifters into orbit. Yes, I have boosters that can get into orbit on their own.

[Navy2k]

Just make it less pain to clean up the mess, so no more 3 klicks half a monitor away.

Greetings

Ben

[Dkmdlb]

I leave debris in orbit as much as possible - fairings, spent stages, decouplers, etc. Here's why: I want to see a piece of debris smash into something at orbital velocity. The best I've done so far is about 3km away. I sometimes launch ships retrograde just to add a little fun in there.

Updates always wipe out all the debris, and that's good enough for me.

[jose.villegas]

I wish debris could add up without damaging performance.

[jaredkzr]

I see debris in a similar light as to flags. They mark where I've been and where I've attempted to go. In career, I like to spice things up by populating Kerbin's orbits with debris so that I have to put more thought into where I place stations, satellites, etc.

[Othuyeg]

Oh and yes... here are the satellites that have yet to turn into debris:

[cantab]

In career I have a bunch of debris about in orbit. Since I haven't unlocked probes, deorbiting's not very practical.

I need to retract this statement. Today I had Jeb deorbit the third stage of his rocket, in his own BadS fashion.

1: Move from the main command pod in the payload to one of the auxilliary pods in the third stage. Said pods are just there as weak reaction wheels, since I've not unlocked proper reaction wheels, so are normally unoccupied.

2: Separate from the payload.

3: Burn retrograde just enough to deorbit the third stage.

4: Get out, re-establish a stable orbit in EVA, and spacewalk back to the payload.

[Unit327]

I leave debris in orbit as much as possible - fairings, spent stages, decouplers, etc. Here's why: I want to see a piece of debris smash into something at orbital velocity.

I've been making a mod just for people like you.

[malkuth]

Because of performance I keep the Debris to minimal.. That will include unloading accidents if I have too.. I keep some debris going.. But clean house every once in awhile.

[Twreed87]

I love debris. Seriously.

Its like a trophy, when i switch map to debris view i see all remnnts of my early space progrm missions, its so nostalgic.

So, i never clean up.

Agree with this. Before you could hide debris in map view, it was a pain. But now that I can hide it, I love turning it on and seeing the trail I've left throughout the solar system.

[sickboy]

I love to have all that debris around, I never really hit it since my parking orbit 75 KM and anything I'm leaving in orbit for longer than 1 orbit is gonna be higher than that, odds of me hitting a debris there is quite unlikely. I don't have as much on my current save but on my previous one if I was at 75 KM altitude or nearby, I could usually always see a gray losange from some other ship from before. Always nice to see one piece and be like: "oh yeah I remember that craft, I went to duna with it" or something.

[vger]

I love to have all that debris around, I never really hit it since my parking orbit 75 KM and anything I'm leaving in orbit for longer than 1 orbit is gonna be higher than that, odds of me hitting a debris there is quite unlikely. I don't have as much on my current save but on my previous one if I was at 75 KM altitude or nearby, I could usually always see a gray losange from some other ship from before. Always nice to see one piece and be like: "oh yeah I remember that craft, I went to duna with it" or something.

I'd actually like it if you could see what vessel the debris originally came from.

[mordin86]

"Prevention is better than cure - always design to leave no orbital debris."

This, I always try to have the possibility to deorbit my bigger debris after reaching the orbit.

[DomDiaemus]

With 195 debris around (in-&-out) 100km orbit I look forward to see one of them impacting either the rockets/shuttles or even the orbital station...

The movie "Gravity" comes to mind but damn it is hard to get them passing by that close... the closest one I saw was over 1.9km way from the station therefore plenty of empty space to fill with more debris (crazy grin)

Beside it is fun to see all the debris passing fast when a rocket is ascending to higher orbit or deorbiting... maybe one day I'll see an impact (sometime in the next 1000y since the probabilities are quite small)