For those who can see the (UK) BBC website, it seems that we are not only destroying our earthbound environment but reaching further out with our litter.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-56845104

Edited April 26, 20215 yr by Reader

1 hour ago, Reader said:

For those who can see the (UK) BBC website, it seems that we are not only destroying our earthbound environment but reaching further out with our litter.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-56845104

 

A well known problem. One that needs addressing. The ISS has been hit before, frequently has to move out of the way and in fact as soon as the recent Crew Dragon arrived the astronauts were warned that a piece of junk was about to fly by.

There's an experiment in orbit now, regarding cleaning up junk. 

1 hour ago, martin-w said:

 

A well known problem. One that needs addressing. The ISS has been hit before, frequently has to move out of the way and in fact as soon as the recent Crew Dragon arrived the astronauts were warned that a piece of junk was about to fly by.

There's an experiment in orbit now, regarding cleaning up junk. 

I thought the Russians had given up on going anywhere near ISS?

Agreed.  The space junk problem has actually been around for decades.

And it's only getting more crowded up there, especially with the plan to put tens of thousands of startlink satellites into low earth orbit.

Once a satellite reaches its end of life it should be removed from orbit.

Dave

Edited April 26, 20215 yr by dave2013

14 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

 

Once a satellite reaches its end of life it should be removed from orbit.

 

Sounds like a good time for Laser-Beam target practice!  

 

49 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

Once a satellite reaches its end of life it should be removed from orbit.

The Starlink ones are designed to be de-orbited at the end of their lives. And even if something goes wrong with them and this doesn't work, their low orbit means they will fall back to Earth much faster than satellites at higher orbit.

At the moment the biggest problem are the dead satellites and leftover upper rocket stages floating around without any control at all. These are large enough to cause a cascade failure if there is collision. They are also the hardest ones to deal with.

7 hours ago, martin-w said:

There's an experiment in orbit now, regarding cleaning up junk.

I believe all experiments so far are designed to capture dead satellites rather than debris. One experiment uses a net to capture the satellites and the other uses a magnetic capture method. The magnetic capture method won't work for existing satellites as as it requires the satellites to have a special docking plate. There was another method involving a tether but I don't know what happened to that. In any case, all of these methods involve capturing satellites one at a time. I don't know how many dead satellites there are but, even if you capture all of them, there are still hundreds of thousands of potentially damaging pieces of debris. I don't know how you could deal with them.

It's not all bad news: Three years ago, a Terrozian Intergalactic Battle Cruiser which was about to invade Earth, was prevented from doing so when it collided with the booster stage from an old Sputnik rocket and was subsequently destroyed, halting the invasion and preventing the enslavement of the human race. I could tell you more about it, but then I'd have to kill you.

I think I saw something about that on TNN, the Terrozian News Network.

they should fly above the debris and shoot globs of glue(slime maybe?) at it and this would simultaneously collect the debris and send it back to Earth.  Time it so it crashes into a special spacejunk graveyard. The bigger satellites could be collected by space drones with tethers or nets maybe.

Edited April 26, 20215 yr by sightseer

51 minutes ago, dmwalker said:

I believe all experiments so far are designed to capture dead satellites rather than debris. One experiment uses a net to capture the satellites and the other uses a magnetic capture method. The magnetic capture method won't work for existing satellites as as it requires the satellites to have a special docking plate. There was another method involving a tether but I don't know what happened to that. In any case, all of these methods involve capturing satellites one at a time. I don't know how many dead satellites there are but, even if you capture all of them, there are still hundreds of thousands of potentially damaging pieces of debris. I don't know how you could deal with them.

 

Yeah, this was the one...

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/21/979815691/new-effort-to-clean-up-space-junk-prepares-to-launch#:~:text=A demonstration mission to test,debris that float above Earth.

 

As you say, attaches itself. 

 

51 minutes ago, dmwalker said:

In any case, all of these methods involve capturing satellites one at a time.

 

I don't see how you could do it any other way but one at a time. Not unless we invent a Star Trek tractor beam and set it to wide beam. 

 

51 minutes ago, dmwalker said:

I don't know how many dead satellites there are but, even if you capture all of them, there are still hundreds of thousands of potentially damaging pieces of debris.

 

3,000 dead satellites, 34,000 pieces of junk bigger than 10cm and literally millions of fragments, flecks of paint all manner of stuff. Trouble is, even a minute particle traveling at 17,000 miles per hour would penetrate a space suit. 

Edited April 26, 20215 yr by martin-w

50 minutes ago, Chock said:

It's not all bad news: Three years ago, a Terrozian Intergalactic Battle Cruiser which was about to invade Earth, was prevented from doing so when it collided with the booster stage from an old Sputnik rocket and was subsequently destroyed, halting the invasion and preventing the enslavement of the human race. I could tell you more about it, but then I'd have to kill you.

 

You sir are spreading false information to hide the truth! I conclude you are working for the government. Everybody knows that the  Terrozian Intergalactic Battle Cruisers have high energy phase modulating hyper force fields powered by zero point energy. 

Just now, martin-w said:

 

You sir are spreading false information to hide the truth! I conclude you are working for the government. Everybody knows that the  Terrozian Intergalactic Battle Cruisers have high energy phase modulating hyper force fields powered by zero point energy. 

Their force field was broken at the time of the collision, and whilst they did phone their IT support, who would have been able to tell them how to fix it - by turning it off and back on again, obviously - the phone line was busy, so they didn't fix it and that's why they crashed. We know they were on hold to IT, because we could hear The Girl From Ipanema playing on a loop on the cockpit voice recorder, which was recovered from the wreckage.

1 hour ago, martin-w said:

Trouble is, even a minute particle traveling at 17,000 miles per hour would penetrate a space suit. 

Are they mostly orbiting in the same general direction since all the launches are done in the same direction?

1 hour ago, dmwalker said:

Are they mostly orbiting in the same general direction since all the launches are done in the same direction?

 

Don't think so, all kinds of altitudes and orbits.