Environmental Technology

So, prowl about in search of orbiting satellites; dismantle them and scavenge components; assimilate these components from varied pieces of hardware into a new collective device...

It sounds like resistance is futile.

This was thought of by Dumb and Dumber....

All satellites are one off designs, for the most part. A fleet, like the Iridium bunch would be very similar, but were launched over a long period of time and are not going to be the same at the end?

Being one-offs, they will all use custom parts, and to resist the vibration of launch, most will not be made for easy disassembly, like the ones made to be serviced by the shuttle were.

That said, we have such a mash of debris up there that we need a way to deal with it. I would like to see the so called Star Wars lasers trained on these bits to ablate them, vaporize them, etc. In fact, and very good method would be a large reflective parabolic surface with a variable focal length used to train sunlight on those bits. With radar and computer control this could subject the debris to strong heating on a recurring basis. Some things would melt/degrade more easily than others, but if you have a 100 square meter mirror focussing down to one square meter = 150 Kilowatts of radiant energy for as long as you can maintain it. with similar orbits, you might be able to give each item 10 minutes in the heat, which would help?

UN should have an agency(arm) for environmental protection,which should require by law any individual,organisation or nation which sends anything to space or sea or underground should salvage same or face sanctions and imprisonment.

How will the Americans react when the rest of the world will come knocking at the door to arrest most of NASA's, Washington's and Pentagon's executives because they littered space? Are they going to surrender to the Iranians and the Chinese even if they have a nice paper signed by UN?

Are the Russians , the Indians, French and Chinese as some other examples going to do the same.....they ALL have space junk out there as well, not just the USA. In fact countries you would never suspect do.

Just my point. You cannot enforce this.

It is just like pollution on earth. It takes a lot of political pressure to motivate a country to clean up its acts when they see the garbages imagine when it is out of sight.

The only way to clean up space it to find a way to re-melt the salvaged space debris to build additions to the space station. We could either make a guest house or simply produce a large shield to protect the space tourist inside from those nasty flying debris not yet collected...

I should send this to Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Branson to include in his space tourist plan.

Whatever said and done,too-much-talking countries like america should set an example to others. If they can drop nuclear bombs in japan,kill innocent people in vietnam,iraq,afghanistan etc as well as assist to kill in srilanka,bangaladesh etc why can't they come forward to clean the ocean,air and space with the collaboration of NATO and UN.

I shouldn't even qualify that rant with a response....but the people and sountries that like to point their fingers at us....SERIOUSLY need to take a long hard look at themselves because they are far from innocent in everything.

The UN is a worthless outfit...Japan started that war...they deserved what they got.

As well as those other p[laces named none of them were without sin...

Time to wake up and smell the coffee.....and put your own house in order before you start pointing fingers and calling names.

Those who tries to teach others should put their houses in order first. What was the sin committed by bangaladeshis(East pakistan)against West pakistan for instance?. When pakistan was created from India in 1947, Lord Mountbaton said "within 25years it will be broken into two" and it happened in 1971. So are many other countries. What happened in Rwanda,India,Srilanka,were anybody punished?. So called G8,G20 and Super powers including UN and commonwealth should admit that if one community rules another community there will be no peace on this earth. Like Soviet union many troubled states to be broken down into smaller nations for security and safety of mankind.

So Perhaps your own country can start to set an example first rather than just talking about it and demanding OTHERS do it first.

Talk is cheap....

In a racist state supported by UN,UK,USA,China,Japan,India etc racial minorities are hopeless treated like domestic animals.

Right..as opposed to the human rights violations in your own home Country of Shri Lanka....real shining example you have right at home....

Stop blaming others and look at what your own people are doing to their own for once....Its not hard if you try.

One community doesn't think another community as their own community but as aliens,invaders,foreigners.

Civilized countries call that their sovereign right to control their borders from people who don't respect them. And every country has that right.

Open Borders is a fantasy of people who think they have the right to violate the immigration laws of other countries.

And besides....we here in the USA are tired of everyone demanding we pay for everything. Its time they started to pay for what they want to do themselves or stop asking.

The UN is a joke and a huge waste of money....always generous with other peoples money....never their own.

And by that....if other countries wish to clean up the debris field....they should do it themselves....and stop demanding we pay for it. If THEY want it, THEY can pay for it.

Borders change with rulers like UK. India had several kings ruling various parts of today's india but britishers called one-country due to geographic reasons which resulted in three nations(india,pakistan,bangaladesh) subsequently and remember soviet russia broken into many,Yugoslavia-Czechoslavia becoming bosnai,serbia,slovania etc Russia suppressed Chechenyans,Israel suppressed Palestinians,Srilanka suppressed Tamils,India suppressed Sikhs and the list grows. The basic principle is if one community/race rule another there will be endless trouble resulting genocide/ethnic cleansing. UN represents nations not races/communities, if a government(race)kills minority(race) they say "internal affair","sovereignty","democracy","wish of the minority" etc.who did this UK or USA or ...?.

If there is a problem in a country they ask the neighbouring country(India/China) to express its opinion on it,is it sovereignty?. In UN you find small communities living in small islands with very low population(see UN member states' population). But a community/race with nearly 80 million population in several countries has no government or UN representation(even observer status). Why can't they give UN membership to communities with only more than 50million,and cluster representation to smaller communities.

Stability.....and the problem with it now...is the amount of despot and rouge countries in it now without any sense of civilized behaviour turned the entire thing into a circus.

For one...the UN Human rights council. Libya was on it....shining example of whats wrong with that outfit.

If you gave every flyspeck country of the week a seat, you end up with a mob. And then there is the reality.....a tiny country shouldn't have the same say as a far larger one..they don't contribute equal amounts. And on average...they are the least stabile.

I suppose they think they should be part of the G7 as well....

Personally the UN should be shut down....its a joke. And a waste of money. All the poor corrupt nations think they are entitled to have everything paid for by the the rest who earned their success. Poor countries are poor because of ingrained corruption and everyone looking for the easy way out instead of doing the right thing and earning success by doing the right things.

And you can't respect what that means until you've had to do it collectively as a community. Examples of that abound in the third world. Look in the Middle east and Africa....Central and south America and much of Asia. Of course instead of looking at themselves and their choices...they want to blame everyone else and talk about how they are entitled to have it handed to them at the expense of others.

And time and time again throughout history...no nation can stand when over half of its citizens take handouts and contribute little to nothing. And NO nation is immune to that... my own included.

It is because UN and rich countries give aid including military related aid without any strings attached. The donor should be allowed to enter any country and check accounts of money spent,interview people not receiving etc. Now for mysterious reasons countries give help,they should disclose what they get in return. American will support criminals as leaders if he says "I am capitalist". A communist country like Russia even if it develope equal to USA they won't accept.

What a crock....

The people giving the money have every right to put conditions on it...and actually SHOULD put a LOT of conditions on it. The leeches of the world don't have to take it.

WHY should they have to disclose anything? Its THEIR money...any agreement is between the people giving it and the people taking it.

Personally I'd love to stop giving ANY money at all to the corrupt third world....they created their mess...let the wallow in it.

Particularly if they want to whine about it....tough...thats the way it is...if you want help...you accept the terms that come with that help...and be happy you are getting any at all. Or you aren't going to get any more help....fix their own problems at home and tough it out..and them maybe they will learn to be more gratefull for any help. Nobody is obligated to give it...and nobody is entitled to demand it.

Its the USA,UK,Japan etc who gave plenty of aid to some countries in which racism, human rights violation,rule by police/military etc were practiced.

You mean...like Shri Lanka? Or every other third world nation on the Planet?

Irrespective of nations or regions all UN member states should take oath to protect human rights, no dominance of a particular religion or language,equal opportunities in employment to countrymen,protect workers rights,their safety,retirement benefits, practice and interpret "democracy" and "majority" non-racially,no arbitary arrest,detention,executions,no "missing persons" ,not assassinate journalists and whistle blowers human rights activists etc which should be monitored by UN,ICRC,AI and embassies.

No..do NOT agree....

Serious criminals or terrorists do NOT have rights they did not give their victims...and should be executed, sooner than later, they forfeited their rights when they they took the lives of their victims.

People who did not work to pay for benifits their entire lives should NOT be entitled to a free ride at the expense of those who do work.

Activists and Journalists should be held to the same legal standards as everyone else are....because most of them break the law in disregard for the facts or the rights of others.

Illegals do not have any right to employment in ANY nation they are in illegally....they are criminals in violation of the law.

The UN is full of despots and rouge nations that ignore their own transgressions....most are no better than their own nations are.....Just like Syria and Lebonon as two examples.

The problem with these positions I do not necessarily disagree with is always the details:

Execute 'em quick; except our police work, courts, and juries make SO MANY mistakes - see the stats on the Southern Poverty Law Center, we have executed a LOT of innocent men

Free rides, etc; widows whose husband's retirements have run out? Born handicapped? Every society decides whom to save or discard, but the ugly end of that stick is eugenics as practiced in the '30s.

Illegals, reporters, activists, most of the UN; you do realize we have to pay to incarcerate this endless list of yours? Or are we back to Exterminate 'em!?

I'm going to be really sorry going any farther with this, but...

So I've got an entire agricultural and service sector of this nation built around cheap immigrant labor. I used to work alongside these guys. Came across the border, sent their money home, went home as soon as the season was over.

Made Social Security a requirement, they came across the border, worked hard, paid Social Security to a bootleg account they were never going to draw from, went home at the end of the season.

Closed the border (increased security - it is still porous); Now it cost them thousands to get smuggled across the border, they couldn't afford to go home and come back. They brought their families.

We still don't have an effective temp worker system, but tell me again what harm there were doing when we decided to 'fix' this problem? All I see is we have made it worse 'fixing' it. If the goal was not to have temporary seasonal employment, there would have been laws years ago against the employer, not the worker.

And by the by - before you start shooting people out of hand, spend a little time working in bars and you will find a huge underground economy based on British citizens working the bars here illegally. Even Thatcher might have had a problem with getting her citizens back tattooed.

All this crap about welfare bums and illegal immigrants is designed to distract you; all just smoke and mirrors. Don't believe me, go look at the last time we went on a rampage about multi-generational welfare and welfare cheats. Turned out to be mostly nonsense. Just didn't pan out. Find me an exception that proves your point? Easy. Find me a consistent institutional problem? Just not there.

Oh, prisoners working. Used to be pretty common, then private industry bitched about competition and it all unravelled. No license plate making, no broom making, basically no working allowed.

So you have got to get past rhetoric and sound bites to find most of what we are fed to distract us is designed to prevent us looking at reality.

You don't have an effective guest worker program because there is too much money for someone to let that happen. I'd start looking at who profits from them being illegal.

Just an example. Take it or not. But when someone with a microphone starts holding up a group as the source of all our troubles, you can bet you are being bullsh*tted.

Americans have been busily ruining their work ethic since WW2. All manner of work, from a good days work, to study hard at school work have been progressively denatured by various influences. The forefront cause has been the insistence of a few % wage increase every year PLUS a raise to compensate for inflation. So if you have inflation of 2-3% and raises of 2-3% this averages - say 5%. Under the rule of 72 this doubles in 12 years = wages and costs, and this is the root of the problem. Automation has mitigated the inexorable increases in wages - but that costs jobs. Now we have lower wages and automation in all these other countries and the USA/Europe's collective gooses are cooked as far as domestic fabrication is concerned.

The ultimate driver of this is the desire to better ones-self, but overlaid is the trade union movement who act to better their members at the expense of non-members. They also have another insidious effect - they protect bad and crooked workers from dismissal for cause. The generic term is feather-bedding, the job is like a feather bed for life - at our expense I might add. Feather Bedding

I would like to see a system of competitive quotes where 2-3 trade unions compete to form the staff of a company - lowest quote wins. As it is now, companies with greedy unions are forced put of business and they lose the jobs to southern states or to China. We have seen the ludicrous levels to which the UAW had forced their members total compensation package, I have seen $85 per hour quoted. This has forced almost 90% of all UAW jobs to be lost over the past 50 years. Steel workers did the same, the so-called rust belt, and all their jobs were lost. The union leaders seem to be stupid in their inability to see this. They all focus on what they say is excess wages to the top bosses. It is the stupidest thing I have ever seen and it has become politically incorrect to criticize unions. Of course, the unions bribe congress - via legal bribery called lobbying.

Some criminals like thieves,robbers,rapists,money launderers,murderers etc who has no money get punished while others who destroy civilisations,practice racism,colonialism etc can escape by using political influence(UN),by supporting USA etc

VERY Lame excuse to justify the actions of common Criminals....

Its common criminals that make places like Shri Lanka and other third world countries the hell holes they are....and more than a few cities in first world nations too.

Its exactly that sort of mindset that keeps the third world.....the third world. You will never better yourself until you acknowledge and fix your own problems first.

If UN and superpowers show a genuine interest there will be no criminals including political criminals supported by them. They use some leaders and their followers/supporters as pawns for political manouvers at the expense of racial minorities and poor people.

The UN is a joke....

The poor are poor because they have institutionalised all the wrong things....The UN is full of criminals now...and has been since its inception.

Unless we replace UN with a meaningful organisation like "Peoples Forum" where all communities get proportional representation based on each community's worldwide population there will be problems in the world. Now small communities have UN representation while major communities(over 50 million population),even multinational communities has no representation. Can UK,USA,UN etc say that those communities have no Government so they have no right to defend,even foreign army(india) can kill them,no body even UK the head of the commonwealth will never defend them.

Thats never going to work...because a flyspeck country should NOT have equal representation....

Mostly because they never make EQUAL payments to the UN.......they never make EQUAL contributions in manpower, therefore there shouldn't be EQUAL representation.

Tough...but thats life. At the local level....at the National level....and the Global Level.

Now someones going to come though here and delete THIS too because YOU can make political posts....but I can't. A bit hypocritical if you ask me.

There is a brisk trade in votes from these 'flyspeck' countries on various matters.

Yes, the votes are purchased

That is the bain of politics....on a local or global level.

What happened to Friends, Compatriots, Allies...?

Yeah....just tired of the entire world expecting and worse demanding that we here in the USA pay for their follies. I pay enough taxes now.....its a sore spot with me...nothing personal. Just tired of being expected to pick up the tabs others ran up.

If the intent of DARPA is to recycle components they are overly optimistic. If they seek to recycle materials, they are not. Many of the alloys, glasses, plastics and power cores can be reshaped as new starting materials.

A recent CR4 blog addressed the touch screen technology in automobiles. The concern: the drive train and body may last 15 years while the gee whiz electronics was obsolete before the car went into production. In addition, the touch interfaces are less durable than hoped.

Why bring this up? It points out the need for standardized interfaces. I don't expect the automobile industries from around the world to come up with an agreement regarding computer control and electronic gizmos. The market place will shape that over time.

US goverment agencies such as DARPA and NASA, should set common module standards and interfaces so that their FUTURE salvage operations COULD include component recycling.

Flying back with the Space Shuttle empty was whose idea?