Solutions Sought For Growing Space Junk Problem

Hey - that's a good idea.

Thanks! Then all we would need is to have the Chinese move an asteroid or two over, and we would likely have iron and nickel for construction materials and maybe some rare earths for making solar panels.

I agree with PWSlack: That is a good idea!

Might end up looking like a Borg Unicomplex collective vessel.

[edit] Part of what makes so many things so expensive is the parts are very heavily engineered. Better to use what you have!

I'd have thought the problem would lend itself to a robotic?artificial inelligence solution.
It needs a small satellite programmed to move in on debris and aggregate with it in some vaguely controlled way and then repeat, eventually it will slurp it all up and turn it's attention to us.... arrrggghhh run for the hills the sky is falling in.

Maybe all those guys who post questions looking fot mech eng projects could take it on. On maybe we just shoot 'em up there with a broom and let 'em sweep up.
Del

I wonder if humans will ever encounter a new frontier that they don't totally trash.

Antarctica?

Too late.

Google "antarctica trash"

Then wouldn't cleaning that stuff up be a priority?

It would be if it was whizzing around the planet at 18,000 mph.

They did. They sent it into orbit.

A lot of space junk is ferrous, such as nuts and bolts, wrenches, screw drivers, etc. Perhaps a small satellite with a powerful solar-powered electromagnet could be used to orbit the bands where most junk is. Since magnetic force is way more powerful than gravity, it might collect a lot of this stuff after a few hundred orbits.

Getting rid of the collection could be easily done with a space shuttle; OOPS; that's no longer an option! Perhaps the satellite could have an engine to get it out of orbit, headed to the sun.

Why go to the Sun? Most of the objects are small......just re-enter Earth's orbit and burn up along the way.

Oops....global warming....or if one object makes it past the frictional furnace of re-entry it might hit someone on the head.

About 50,000 tons of dust and meteors burn up in the atmosphere each year - a little more won't hurt. There are only a handful of objects in space that would survive re-entry. The Hubble and ISS for instance.

More aluminum and titanium than iron. There's some stainless steel, but generally lightweight and non-reactive materials are used.

Solutions involving gobbling it up accreting it need to take Conservation of Momentum into account; anything accreted will change the orbit and velocity of the accreter and the accreted stuff.

All of the stuff in earth orbit is not junk.

I remember a Hasselblad camera being lost by Micheal Collins performing an EVA during GEMINI X. Camera and film magazine, both lost. I can't find much about it on the 'net, but it (camera) may still be out there floating amidst the junk.

As an aside, there are 12 Hasselblad cameras on the moon, left there as a weight conservation measure. Sort of an expensive disposable camera!

There was a cometary fly-by, using Aerogel to collect ejecta from the comet. (Sorry it's late for me and I just don't have the energy to look up the comet's name.) Perhaps that method, using Aerogel to collect the junk. Large panels of Aerogel on on several small satellites traveling through the worst orbits.

The material got there slowly, it may take a while to collect it.

Just an option.

Dragon