Slashdot Mirror
NASA's Top 10 Space Junk Missions
Ant writes "NASA has identified the top ten space junk missions and said over 19,000 pieces of space junk are known to exist..." That's nothing: You should see my living room.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
One of the biggest sources of space junk are the gobs of solidified radioactive coolant from old Soviet satellites.
Tisha Hayes
What nation wants to spend money to send people up into space to clean up after what's essentially other people's garbage? There's no immediate gain, so nobody's going to do it.
http://www.tenjou.net/
Much of the space debris is in very small pieces like paint chips, pieces of thermal blankets, screws/nuts/bolts, etc..
The volume of near space that is "polluted" is vast. It is a constantly evolving three dimensional environment with debris moving at all sorts of crazy trajectories that change frequently depending upon the solar wind, geomagnetic field and the swelling and contraction of our tenuous upper atmosphere.
It would be like searching the beach in Fiji, looking for a particular 1957 nickel. The efforts to chase down each individual piece of trash is much greater than the risks of that particular piece.
We need to;
1. Stop spewing little parts, disgards and trash into space.
2. Do a better job of tracking what is up there.
3. Harden satellites to be able to survive the impact from a very small object.
4. Come up with a clean way to dispose of old space hardware other than abandonment in "graveyard orbits".
Tisha Hayes
http://russianforces.org/blog/2006/07/problems_with_cosmos2421.shtml
http://russianforces.org/blog/2008/03/cosmos2421_completed_its_missi.shtml
Most of this stuff is metallic right? Possibly even magnetic? Methinks we need a Wile E. Coyote style ACME space-junk removing magnet! As an added benefit, it may trap fast moving birds in its steady stream of space debris!
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
That's nothing: You should see my living room.
So...you're either a heroin addict, a messy slob, a collector of Chinese model boats, really do have pieces of souvenir space junk, or have a hobby for acquiring pickled male genit...okay:
Tell us Ant, which 'junk' is most true for your living room?
Well, the damage from any of these objects is potentially catastrophic. It's not like getting a flat tire ... the relative speeds here are enough to cause major damage. The pieces also look like they're fairly well spread out in orbit.
From the linked article, that Chinese satellite that got shot down has created some 2841 pieces -- imagine something the size of a pea striking your orbiter at, what, 10000 mph? That's a lot of kinetic energy.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Sure. The same method as used to clean up the largest portion of the oil spill in the Gulf....don't allow anyone to take pictures.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
For the sake of discussion, let's assume this report showed a problem orders of magnitude worse, and we were on the verge of Kessler syndrome conditions. What technologies exist today to combat the problem? (Yes, I know, no government today would unilaterally scrub space without a quid pro quo...)
If there are 19,000 trackable chunks of debris, how many untrackable (and just as deadly) small particles are there? I know that particle densities are minute. If we launched an array of satellites with Aerogel paneling, is it reasonable to expect a significant improvement in "air" quality up there?
What about that heat-ray device recently pulled our of Afghanistan? Can we launch one of those to spray microwaves tangentially to the Earth's surface? Would the heat applied to a paint-chip sized debris particle be enough to change the orbit? It doesn't take too much delta-v to alter the eccentricity of a paint fleck enough to burn up in orbit, does it?
(Less coffee, more sleep next time, methinks)
khasim (12/9/06): In a blind taste test, more people preferred Coke over the Pepsi that I had previously pissed in.
If we could monetize recycling in space, we'd clear that area up in quick order. maybe once private space flight and delivery takes off, someone will find a way to gather, break down, and recycle all the (otherwise very expensive) stuff up there.
-- All this knowledge is giving me a raging brainer.
Nope and nope.
Most is aluminum and titanuim. Nobody has launched cast iron rockets cince the 30's.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yeah, well while you're developing presently impossible Star Trek gadgets like a tractor beam, why not just develop a matter transporter and beam the shit down, Scotty?
Free Martian Whores!
Solve the "how do you apply force at a distance" issue and yer halfway there.
Methinks we need a Wile E. Coyote style ACME space-junk removing magnet!
ummm i dont think that would be the best method because ACME products always ended badly for him
To accomplish this, you would need a vast array of laser brooms. The percentage of objects which travel through your cone of opportunity are a minuscule proportion. You can't cover 180 degrees (the part you can see) of the sky because the distance to the target at the horizon is several hundred km through thermal layers.
The inverse of that minuscule proportion is the number of brooms you'd need.
Forget the energy needed and environmental impact of blasting a terawatt (ok, then... how big?) laser into space. You hit a Vulcan in the eye with that an they will be pissed!
Military "tests" ("warnings") that destroy orbiting satellites leave junk in orbit that makes future space exploitation more dangerous, costly, and even impossible (vulnerable equipment). It's like the hidden costs of manufacturing (and war) at the surface, which are left as problems for someone else. We humans should quickly force people, governments and corporations which produce debris to either clean it up, or to pay for someone else who cleans it up. We don't want to box in our growing space development just as it's getting started with the pollution from the first few generations.
--
make install -not war
Maybe some international body could charge a property tax on birds up there and use it to fund regular garbage collections, a bit like local councils down on earth.
Why? The insurance recovery fee would do more than make up the difference. A $100 million satellite that goes bad because of a $1500 circuit board can be re-activated if somebody could get to the satellite either physically or by remote tele-presence.
The ISS can be setup as a base of operations, but a commercial space station would be better.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes
Who knew that a decent, but under appreciated manga that debuted in the late 90s would turn out to be a tale of things to come? :)
Setting up a net isn't that easy. Aside from the 19,000 "large" items (those over about 10cm), there are tens of millions of smaller items like washers and paint flecks. Let's say there are 50 million such objects between altitudes of 150 miles and 300 miles. That space totals up to 11.7 billion cubic miles for an average about 235 cubic miles per piece of debris. There are, of course, higher densities in some spots, but not enough to make something like this economical.
Additionally, aerogel is some fragile stuff. I know it is, because I have some at home. It came from a polite request to purchase some small, random piece from an aerogel manufacturer about ten years ago, and the person who replied was kind enough to simply put a piece of shop scrap in a plastic box and send it to me (complete with MSDS). Within ten minutes of opening it and despite what I thought was careful handling, I had broken the piece in two, and in the intervening years, it has broken further into about six major pieces and a dozen minor bits. It may be good for capturing micrometeors, but it would shatter if it were hit by a bolt, adding to the debris problem.
As for who gets back the space debris and whatever else is deorbited, the answer should be "nobody." Send it to break up over the Pacific. If a country wants something back badly enough, they can design the important parts to survive re-entry and bring it back on their own, or provide funding for a dedicated retrieval mission.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes
The story of Planetes follows the crew of the DS-12 "Toy Box" of the Space Debris Section, a unit of Technora Corporation. Debris Section's purpose is to prevent the damage or destruction of satellites, space stations and spacecraft from collision with debris in Earth's and the Moon's orbits. They use a number of methods to dispose of the debris (mainly by burning it via atmospheric reentry or through salvage), accomplished through the use of EVA suits.
The episodes sometimes revolve around debris collection itself, but more often the concept of collecting "trash" in space is merely a storytelling method for building character development. The members of the Debris Section are looked down upon as the lowest members of the company and they must work hard to prove their worth to others and accomplish their dreams.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Does anybody remember "Salvage 1" starring Andy Griffith? The premise involved a junkyard owner who builds a rocket so that he can salvage abandoned moon landing equipment (e.g. lunar landers, rovers, cameras, etc.) to sell for profit upon returning to Earth.
It ran for 1.5 seasons back in 1979-80. It was one of the many things that sparked my interest in space exploration when I was a kid.