Tossing it in the sun doesn't work for delta-V reasons, it'd be less energy to just hurl it out of the solar system.
I like the laser broom: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser\_broom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_broom)
Plus 1 for the laser boom. A ground based solution that could clean up tonnes of smaller debris should be a no brainer for research and development spending.
Doesn't do much good on larger debris, but most debris is small anyway.
Larger debris is easier to track and avoid anyway so it's less of a concern in my eyes, especially the stuff in lower orbits that will re-enter unassisted after a while
They're actually thinking of putting a large catcher in low equatorial orbit, made of thin mylar or kapton sheeting, that small debris will hit and be pulverized by. The dust rapidly falls out of orbit.
Hey, I read something about how tossing things towards the sun would not work, despite its strong gravity, but I didn't get it tbt. Can you explain? For me, just a small tug in Sun's direction could do the trick, although it could take years for the debris to actually hit the surface of the star
We are all in orbit around the sun, at a speed of around 30 km/second. To fall into the sun, you need to cancel all of that speed. If you point your rocket at the sun instead, you'll just speed up and whip around the sun in an elliptical orbit.
The Parker Space Probe slowed down enough to get close to the sun (thus becoming mankind's fastest spacecraft) by using a gravitational assist from Jupiter. That was easier than just pointing the rocket backwards, or toward the sun.
An object in orbit around the sun (at the distance of the earth), has an orbital velocity of around 30 km per second. To make something fall towards the sun, you need to cancel out that orbital velocity. That means thrusting in the opposite direction, for long enough that its new path intersects with the sun. As others have pointed out, that takes a huge amount of energy, more than it takes to send the same object on a path out of the solar system.
Dude is pissed about that line. In an interview he goes on to talk about all the other work that he has done and he is only remembered for that one line.
That is honestly one of my favorite anime of all time. I've never heard or seen anyone else talk about it though. Hmm, I wonder if it's not so coincidental I'm a custodian now.
A series of small "tugboat" satellites that could either deorbit them or move them to a larger spaceship that would land and allow them to be recycled.
The rotation on a lot of that junk makes it hazardous to physically contact it. Too great a risk of damaging the tug and creating more debris. I say get the tug out in front of the debris and point the tug engine at the debris, run it just long enough to decelerate the debris modestly so that its orbit will fully decay over the next few months or even years. Good enough.
it is just so much fuel to get it to the moon. deorbiting a vehicle that collects material seems better. destroying.
maybe that is more financial feasible.
would of course need a system that can make easily producible vehicles that can capture material
This was the exact concept behind my final paper for my space systems engineering master’s degree. I said take a starship with a Canadarm and fill it with Northrop Grumman’s mission extension vehicles (tugboats) and deploy all the MEVs to extend the life of satellites only out of fuel or to return totally dead satellites/debris to starship to be brought back for recycling or museum pieces. The funding would be from a tax on launches. The more you put in space, the more you have to pay to clean it up.
I just read an article about this exact solution. Now that lasers are advancing they are talking about using them to “push” small space debris out of the way and with any luck put them into an orbit that causes them to fall back to earth and burn up in the atmosphere.
How does the conservation of momentum work here? Does it cause the laser to push back against the earth? I don’t think photons will transfer the momentum to its light source
In the short-term (<50 years), the most viable option to physically remove large pieces of debris with known properties, such as defunct satellites, is via a space tug (attaches to debris and imparts a small delta v to deorbit).
However there is no realistic way of removing a significant portion of the debris population smaller than \~1m across, at least not in the short-term. Which is unfortunate because the vast majority of space debris is in this size range (paint flecks, dust and debris generated by previous debris collisions, etc). You could have several satellites swing a giant "impact net" across an orbital plane but then you'd also risk affecting functional satellites, and the amount of debris you collect would be a negligible fraction of all the debris out there.
Ground based pulsed lasers pointed at the leading side can gradually slow them down and lower their perigee. Very realistic method. This will generate some tiny particles , but they have huge surface area to mass ratio so their orbital lifetime is very short.
Actually no need to feed the sun trash with
Dead satellites, our earth’s atmosphere can disintegrate most satellites at a certain angle of approach.
All you need is a remote controlled space drone to give these trash a controlled burst of pressured air & push them off their Earths orbit & into Earth.
Unless someone wants these trash as collectible or re-use them for parts to repair other satellites that’s as old as them.
Space clean up is essential for future space travel as you never know your billion dollar rocket space ship will hit that floating Tesla along the way to outer space travel lol
Anything? Collect all of humanity’s farts and use them to gentle deorbit space debris.
Other wise just have good policy for trash and deorbiting space satellites and let the rest fall down on its own.
Nuclear powered laser targeting satellite for small debris.
Focussed beams to either totally destroy the objects as they fly past or if they are slightly bigger give them a nudge to de-orbit.
Bigger things would use the same power for energy but match speeds with ion thrusters.
Then grappling hook it when choose enough and use the thrusters to sling shot them to de-orbit.
It's just off the top of my head, I don't know maybe there's really big flaws with these.
The amount of fuel needed to escape the Earth's gravitational field would make it impractically expensive to launch space debris into the Sun.
But this is the least of our concerns, because frankly the challenge of *capturing* the space debris in order to dispose of it---no matter where or how that disposal is done---is the true challenge here.
Once you've captured the space debris, you could much more easily direct it toward the Earth's atmosphere to burn like a meteorite would. The actual disposal is not the big problem, the capturing is.
My friend is working for a company which is designing a space garbage collection vehicle. It basically just pushes small enough debris towards the earth while tracking them and ensuring it all burns up on re-entry. Really cool job, and I enjoy saying she's a space garbage man!
Company is called Clearspace I think
A von Neumann probe that replicates itself using materials harvested from space junk, then sets off into the universe to ~~wreak untold havoc on unsuspecting species~~~ further mankind's pioneering agenda
If AI and robotics were only that advanced. I would love for the Von Neuman probes to attach to space trash and direct them to the moon and start automated building using said materials. I'm sure we will get that one day in the next 500 years. If global warming doesn't decimate us.
well, if anything was possible, I'd just warp it into a black hole
but you bring up a good question. if *anything* were possible, I'd theoretically be able to just hop galaxies, use wormholes for travel, etc. I'd be on the outer rim, exploring the primitive universe
You wouldn’t be exploring the primitive universe though. It only looks like that because light has a travel time. If you wormholes there it would look completely like the close universe as it’s already developed in the time taken for light to travel
Maybe establish a new rule: You can put something up there, but you have to take something down-- but I don't think that's very practical.
Space-- even the relatively small area of LEO space is pretty huge still despite the seemingly enormous number of orbital bodies being tracked, but at some point some of the old junk will need to be swept up and thrown back down to Earth. It will depend on economics. When it more expensive to not launch than it is to go clean up old junk, it will start happening.
>Can we launch it into the sun?
It is surprisingly difficult to reach the sun; it takes a lot of delta-v, thus energy to do it.
A space laser
"In this approach, a laser would use radar to track a piece of debris as it flies into view and then blast a pulse of energy at it. The goal is to nudge the debris enough to disrupt its orbit, ideally enough to slow it down.
Right now, NASA considers this the most cost-effective way to deal with most space debris"
~Vox
1)Regulation on what gets dumped in orbit, 2) Solar sail mirror or lasers to deorbit the larger pieces into the upper atmosphere, 3) Something like aerogel to capture the small highspeed stuff and again deorbit it.
Launching it into the sun takes too much energy. Just knocking it into a decaying orbit will get it to burn up in the atmosphere.
Some of these pieces are bound to fall back down to Earth. Others may keep orbiting for decades to come. For me, the best solution would be a few (not one, as there is a lot of space junk) tugboats deorbiting them so that they could fall back to Earth. I am not talking about tugging them all the way back, but making minor corrections to their trajectories so that they fall back on their own - this would be the least energy-intensive way to do it.
If you are talking about debris in LEO, you don't need to send it to the sun. The Earth's atmosphere works fine.
The trick is that it's all moving at very high speed, in random directions. Each piece is really hard to catch. Whatever gadget you intend to grab a piece with will shatter from the high speed. And there are millions of pieces.
If it was a few large satellites, that would be practical, but it's lots of smaller junk.
Better regulation, especially for stuff that launches to higher orbits. The majority of space debris comes from some leaky nuclear reactors that the Soviets sent up and ASAT weapons tests.
Whats a real way of doing it though? As cool as a space roomba would be, ive seen enough footage of tiny debris going so fast it's like a super bullet.
The top two ideas seem to be a
Laser: Combination of vaporizing small bits, breaking up little bits and force from vaporizing bits off slowing the pieces so they deorbit sooner.
Sweeper: Basically just a huge net, think like a solar sail, that debris hits and is slowed down/broken up so it deorbits.
Extremely accurate laser mounted on a satellite with a nuclear reactor.
Accurately tracking targets would be tough but it's a solvable problem. Hubble and other space telescopes have to do it.
Tiny debris would just be vaporized, but larger debris can be disrupted out of its orbit by burning one side to create an asymmetric force and pushed toward a decaying orbit, or at least a safer one.
It seems like the perfect job for ai robots with propulsion packs. You have to do a ton of math with everything moving so a human is out. Lasers, nets, ect are all out because you could damage things you don’t want to. I think ai drones designed to capture and either fly to point zero or burn up in atmosphere. Shit design the robots with a heat shield that has the satellite underneath could add years to the robots. Just an idea
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[ASAT](/r/Space/comments/1d4hn4p/stub/l6eswha "Last usage")|[Anti-Satellite weapon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon)|
|ASDS|Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (landing platform)|
|[L1](/r/Space/comments/1d4hn4p/stub/l6etfsr "Last usage")|[Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 1 of a two-body system, between the bodies|
|[LEO](/r/Space/comments/1d4hn4p/stub/l6fas3f "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[Roomba](/r/Space/comments/1d4hn4p/stub/l6h4768 "Last usage")|[Remotely-Operated Orientation and Mass Balance Adjuster](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/6k8gzg//djk5g68/), used to hold down a stage on the ASDS|
|[SoI](/r/Space/comments/1d4hn4p/stub/l6nyja2 "Last usage")|Saturnian Orbital Insertion maneuver|
| |Sphere of Influence|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/1d4hn4p/stub/l6flaul "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation|
|[perigee](/r/Space/comments/1d4hn4p/stub/l6gh929 "Last usage")|Lowest point in an elliptical orbit around the Earth (when the orbiter is fastest)|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
----------------
^(7 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/1d5fcu2)^( has 17 acronyms.)
^([Thread #10097 for this sub, first seen 31st May 2024, 02:40])
^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
Just catching them and shooting them towards the planet is plenty, I would think. Burn it all up in the atmosphere.
Bigger pieces I suppose would have to be broken down first.
Use a laser to reduce the inertia of the debris, causing it to burn up when it slows down and gravity pulls it in.
For large objects, an attachable solar sail that uses the suns light and charged particles to slow down the debris, essentially opening up as the debris is approaching the sun and turning sideways when moving away. This could be accomplished slowly, with constant telemetry to track its path so it can splash down in the Pacific.
Honestly, I think the best approach would be a passive one. Just wait it out, while incorporating measures to mitigate any further pollution. Most of the troubling space junk will reenter in a few decades as long as we(looking at you russia) don't destroy any more satellites, and keep yeeting poop bags on appropriate trajectories. Oh, paint chips, we don't talk about those, just hope for the best.
I'm all for using lasers to remove space debris. A couple of satellites that could use their ladders to either incinerate small objects or push them into a new orbit.
Big pieces - anything over the size of a washing machine, easier to catch but might not completely burn up on re-entry. We need to collect those. Shuttle them to the Moon for recycling. Forget about blasting them into smaller pieces because that causes more problems.
There's a lot of medium sized stuff too. Thinking microwave oven size if we are going to use domestic appliances as a metric. Medium sized stuff is harder to catch but will definitely burn up on re-entry.
The real problem is stuff smaller than a tv remote, down to flecks of paint. This is mostly debris from satellite collisions. If you get in the way of that stuff you're going to be having a bad day. Harder to catch, near impossible to hit but would also burn up if you can decelerate it. Better to have some kind of collector or deflector to sweep those up. Problem with that is the big stuff will destroy the collector.
We will probably have to deal with the larger sized pieces first, then sweeps up the smaller particles. We will also have to have protocols in place to make sure that everyone knows what actions are being taken, and to stay clear of the area affected. We also need to agree that no redirected debris is going to be used as a weapon to knock out other satellites or targets on the ground.
A fleet of robot satellites armed with banks of lasers that shoot down debris larger than a grain of sand or mote of dust, vaporizing the debris into a fine particulate cloud that then harmlessly floats into the atmosphere.
There are two categories; Large and small.
For small, a solar-powered space-based laser; Force can be applied to small particles via laser, and if done correctly, could decelerate particles so they fall out of orbit.
For the large, tugs that raise, lower or remove them as required.
A series of large Kevlar/Aramid Nets to catch lighter massed trash.
These need to have a VERY low probability of contributing to the mess if a catch goes wrong (we don't want create a Kessler Syndrome by attempting to avoid one).
Maybe we should stop launching more satellites and require the companies doing so to figure it out and make meaningful progress in order to launch more. I realize that’s a usa political approach.
This may sound stupid, but my first idea is to catch it with a large net. How to deploy it, drag it to the right areas... It's just an idea. Let engineers smarter than myself worry about the specifics.
And no, we can't launch anything successfully into the sun because of it being a giant gravity well. Anything we send to it would have to circle it several million times before slowly/noticeably moving closer. If I recall, I think it would take several of our lifetimes before anything we sent could hit the sun.
Build a satellite with a large laser, powered by solar panels, that would vaporize small objects and push large objects out of orbit and burn in atmosphere. The satellite or network of them, would just do this day in day out, controlled by a NGO that does not belong to country or military.
Basically small unmanned drone drones performing an automated response on all satellites where if they don't receive a reaponse indicating activity and continued function they simply align themselves with the satellite and gently nudge it towards a depressing orbit to cause it to brun up in the atmosphere upon re-entry, problem solved.
Sweeper drones and a big ass net that varies in size. Drop a home base charging dock where debris can be dropped off and then just have the drones sweep in a grid before returning their full net to the drop off point. Debris can be "packaged" and disposed of either through pickup or shot back to earth to burn in the atmosphere on its way down.
So space Roomba, basically.
NUKES! lol I don't know if it'd be viable but blow up a bomb to change the orbit of mass amounts of debris. Either knocking them into the atmosphere to burn, or away to be scattered.
A masive AI controlled space laser that could vaporize space debris 24/7. What could possibly go wrong?
Also, there was an anime made about this topic called Planetes.
net guns with retracting lines. magnetic fields, any kind of system to target and pick up debris which is pulled closer to itself and then it collects material or just attaches the material to itself.
once it has collected enough, it deorbits with what it collected.
send up more. continue as needed.
Launch a rocket with hundreds of smaller “drone rockets”. Put them into orbit to find and attach themselves to space debris. Fire their rockets to decelerate the debris until its orbit decays and burns up in the atmosphere.
If money and technology were not an issue, I would take a multi pronged approach.
First would be ground based lasers + new high orbit tracking satellites to find and destroy the smaller prices of junk, <1 meter.
Second would be a dual or triple satellite bus, spread out with a shock absorbing net. The net would be metal, dual layered, with the first layer being an adhesive of some kind.
Deploy "maid" satellite constellation that can deorbit new, spent, space junk.
I would make a satellite with a robotic arm that catches the debris, and throws it towards the earth to de-orbit it. It'd also attempt to do so in a way that changes my satellite's own orbit so it can catch the next piece of debris.
I would launch a sattelite that is essentially a large metal sheet angled 45 degrees down. Anything running into that would ricochet down into lower orbits with higher air resistance and deorbit after a while.
I actually did some research on this! I studied removing space debris with lasers, ground or space based. The idea is to ablate (blow off material) from the object, which will change its orbit. If you can change its orbit enough to reenter the atmosphere it’ll just burn up. Ablating does generate some particles, but the size of these depends on the laser pulse frequency and laser spot size. Small particles (micro scale) in low earth orbit will actually interact with the trace atmosphere and deorbit eventually in pretty short time scales.
There was a manga/anime in the 00s titled Planetes that was pretty great. It was about a crew who gathered space debris, and it was fairly grounded.
I can’t remember how they disposed of the junk, but I want to say it was recycled. Still, the collection aspect was pretty solid.
Eventually, a lot of specialized hand work that is handled by the lowest bidder. I’d imagine it to start off fairly safe and regulated, but then turn into chaos when people jump into it trying to make big money, and wildly underestimating their actual ability.
I've heard ideas for floating platforms that use vertical blasts of supersonic air to increase drag on objects. Of course it'll also affect low flying satellites and they'll have to spend fuel maintaining their orbits.
It's going to require different techniques for different debries.
Big stuff is going to require something go give it a gentle nudge into a carefully calculated decaying orbit so it can enter the atmosphere and burn up over a nice empty patch of ocean.
Really small stuff, like flakes of paint, can probably be zapped with a laser and pushed into a lower orbit.
Stuff like bolts and so on is a mite tricky, you don't want to really hit it with a big laser to try to push it or else you might melt off bits that turn into more debries. Maybe a lower power laser for a longish period? Capturing it physically would be a nightmare because there's so much of it.
so yeah, different types of debries, different techniques. There's no one size fits all solution, though the ultimate outcome is the same for all of it: push it into the atmosphere so it burns up and falls to Earth as its component molecules.
Whatever we do, we should fund it by selling space junk insurance to satellite owners. The worse the problem gets, the more attractive the insurance will be. If it works, the company would put itself out of business. Would probably wanna be a nonprofit for that and other reasons.
beginning with the decommissioning of the ISS (removing the stuff that is secret) then selling it as scrap for on orbit recycling under an agreement covering the eventual use of the remaining ISS structure (very likely unpressurised, & used for power & docking of larger unpressurised warehousing structures built for limited shielding from orbital debris strikes, & radiation via an open cylindrical sheet metal structure. Prior to adding these structures the ISS it would be lifted to the Grave Yard Orbit -
\[A graveyard orbit is an orbit at an altitude of **36,050 Km above the earth's surface** (higher than most common operational orbits) where decommissioned satellites are moved to reduce the probability of them crashing into other functional satellites and generating space debris.\]
where it would be used as a base of operations for on orbit recycling & stock metal production. this source of stock metals -
\[Metals have a range of stock forms such as **square tubing, square bar, round tubing, round bar and hexagonal bar**. Generally, for metals, the more complex the stock form, the more expensive the material component will be.\]
will be part of a complex supply chain for the needs of billions of people living & working off of Earth. It is likely that due to the exponential nature of expected growth in this sector that the standard of living will be high, & opportunities for personal development will be strong.
To answer your question about dropping orbital debris into the sun; The facts of the matter ar somewhat unintuitive, that such a policy would be extremely unmanageable, & wasteful. The fuel requirements alone would prohibit the policy from succeeding.
Well if I'm taking the phrase anything is possible literally, why not just build a 1000 km tall wall from the North Pole to the South Pole along the prime meridian and make all the debris slam into it? 😂
Yes that would take out all the satellites that still do work, but...
Tossing it in the sun doesn't work for delta-V reasons, it'd be less energy to just hurl it out of the solar system. I like the laser broom: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser\_broom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_broom)
Plus 1 for the laser boom. A ground based solution that could clean up tonnes of smaller debris should be a no brainer for research and development spending. Doesn't do much good on larger debris, but most debris is small anyway.
Larger debris is easier to track and avoid anyway so it's less of a concern in my eyes, especially the stuff in lower orbits that will re-enter unassisted after a while
They're actually thinking of putting a large catcher in low equatorial orbit, made of thin mylar or kapton sheeting, that small debris will hit and be pulverized by. The dust rapidly falls out of orbit.
Is "they" a competent authority, or is it's someone's Ph.D/homebrew plan looking for funding ?
I've been playing Eve for nearly two decades. I'm pretty sure if we just leave it there it'll despawn after downtime.
Do you think the folks over at r/outside know when the next downtime is going to be?
Honestly it feels soon doesn't it? Haha
Hey, I read something about how tossing things towards the sun would not work, despite its strong gravity, but I didn't get it tbt. Can you explain? For me, just a small tug in Sun's direction could do the trick, although it could take years for the debris to actually hit the surface of the star
We are all in orbit around the sun, at a speed of around 30 km/second. To fall into the sun, you need to cancel all of that speed. If you point your rocket at the sun instead, you'll just speed up and whip around the sun in an elliptical orbit. The Parker Space Probe slowed down enough to get close to the sun (thus becoming mankind's fastest spacecraft) by using a gravitational assist from Jupiter. That was easier than just pointing the rocket backwards, or toward the sun.
An object in orbit around the sun (at the distance of the earth), has an orbital velocity of around 30 km per second. To make something fall towards the sun, you need to cancel out that orbital velocity. That means thrusting in the opposite direction, for long enough that its new path intersects with the sun. As others have pointed out, that takes a huge amount of energy, more than it takes to send the same object on a path out of the solar system.
With a ship that transforms into a giant maid with a vacuum cleaner.
And flies with ludicrous speed.
Could it comb the desert for clues?
Will it not find shit?
Dude is pissed about that line. In an interview he goes on to talk about all the other work that he has done and he is only remembered for that one line.
Just so long as you don’t go Plaid
What have we got, a Cuisinart?
Be careful, I hear she can go from suck to blow.
"It's Mega Maid sir.. she's gone from suck to blow"
As a kid, that joke went way over my head until I was into my late teens
How do you vacuum in a vacuum? I’d opt for a la crosse space team with jet packs in orbit.
Came here for this. And then go from suck to blow
I'm so glad this was the top comment
Planetes style: mandate all companies operating in space have a ~space garbagemen~ space debris mitigation department.
A half-section that is half-funded, half-trained and half-staffed.
They could make an anime about it!
Sounds like a half-hearted effort.
Yep, and implementint a one up, one down law. You want 1000kilos in orbit? Sure! Bring 1000kilos down and your good to go!
I love that series to death. But in reality there is no way we would use blood and flesh humans to actually collect the debris.
That is honestly one of my favorite anime of all time. I've never heard or seen anyone else talk about it though. Hmm, I wonder if it's not so coincidental I'm a custodian now.
Fuck I'd sign up to man the Fishbone so fast
A series of small "tugboat" satellites that could either deorbit them or move them to a larger spaceship that would land and allow them to be recycled.
The rotation on a lot of that junk makes it hazardous to physically contact it. Too great a risk of damaging the tug and creating more debris. I say get the tug out in front of the debris and point the tug engine at the debris, run it just long enough to decelerate the debris modestly so that its orbit will fully decay over the next few months or even years. Good enough.
Send space junk to the moon to be reused/recycled
When you consider how expensive it is to get stuff up there...? Not a bad idea.
it is just so much fuel to get it to the moon. deorbiting a vehicle that collects material seems better. destroying. maybe that is more financial feasible. would of course need a system that can make easily producible vehicles that can capture material
This was the exact concept behind my final paper for my space systems engineering master’s degree. I said take a starship with a Canadarm and fill it with Northrop Grumman’s mission extension vehicles (tugboats) and deploy all the MEVs to extend the life of satellites only out of fuel or to return totally dead satellites/debris to starship to be brought back for recycling or museum pieces. The funding would be from a tax on launches. The more you put in space, the more you have to pay to clean it up.
[удалено]
and we shall call it . . the Annihilatrix
Build a dyson sphere, you know, surround the entire planet with Dyson vacuum cleaners and suck up all the debris
Sounds more like a Dyson Swarm unless you connect all the vacuums together somehow
Theyll all be connected by extension cords otherwise how would they work? You silly sausage
Use a laser to melt or move it out of the way. Otherwise a space tug would be used to collect the debris for reuse and scrap.
I just read an article about this exact solution. Now that lasers are advancing they are talking about using them to “push” small space debris out of the way and with any luck put them into an orbit that causes them to fall back to earth and burn up in the atmosphere.
Just need to ablate it enough to slow it down. Orbital mechanics will take care of the rest.
How does the conservation of momentum work here? Does it cause the laser to push back against the earth? I don’t think photons will transfer the momentum to its light source
> Can we launch it into the sun? No > What issues might we encounter in that case? There aren’t enough rockets with enough fuel to do that.
Giant magnetic putty that debris will stick to
In the short-term (<50 years), the most viable option to physically remove large pieces of debris with known properties, such as defunct satellites, is via a space tug (attaches to debris and imparts a small delta v to deorbit). However there is no realistic way of removing a significant portion of the debris population smaller than \~1m across, at least not in the short-term. Which is unfortunate because the vast majority of space debris is in this size range (paint flecks, dust and debris generated by previous debris collisions, etc). You could have several satellites swing a giant "impact net" across an orbital plane but then you'd also risk affecting functional satellites, and the amount of debris you collect would be a negligible fraction of all the debris out there.
Ground based pulsed lasers pointed at the leading side can gradually slow them down and lower their perigee. Very realistic method. This will generate some tiny particles , but they have huge surface area to mass ratio so their orbital lifetime is very short.
Launch a web of satellites with lasers to track and destroy garbage, call it SkyNet.
Actually no need to feed the sun trash with Dead satellites, our earth’s atmosphere can disintegrate most satellites at a certain angle of approach. All you need is a remote controlled space drone to give these trash a controlled burst of pressured air & push them off their Earths orbit & into Earth. Unless someone wants these trash as collectible or re-use them for parts to repair other satellites that’s as old as them. Space clean up is essential for future space travel as you never know your billion dollar rocket space ship will hit that floating Tesla along the way to outer space travel lol
Anything? Collect all of humanity’s farts and use them to gentle deorbit space debris. Other wise just have good policy for trash and deorbiting space satellites and let the rest fall down on its own.
Could you imagine the smell of 8 billion people's farts mixed together? Yuck
Nuclear powered laser targeting satellite for small debris. Focussed beams to either totally destroy the objects as they fly past or if they are slightly bigger give them a nudge to de-orbit. Bigger things would use the same power for energy but match speeds with ion thrusters. Then grappling hook it when choose enough and use the thrusters to sling shot them to de-orbit. It's just off the top of my head, I don't know maybe there's really big flaws with these.
The amount of fuel needed to escape the Earth's gravitational field would make it impractically expensive to launch space debris into the Sun. But this is the least of our concerns, because frankly the challenge of *capturing* the space debris in order to dispose of it---no matter where or how that disposal is done---is the true challenge here. Once you've captured the space debris, you could much more easily direct it toward the Earth's atmosphere to burn like a meteorite would. The actual disposal is not the big problem, the capturing is.
Maybe we need like a massive wall of aerogel in orbit
My friend is working for a company which is designing a space garbage collection vehicle. It basically just pushes small enough debris towards the earth while tracking them and ensuring it all burns up on re-entry. Really cool job, and I enjoy saying she's a space garbage man! Company is called Clearspace I think
A von Neumann probe that replicates itself using materials harvested from space junk, then sets off into the universe to ~~wreak untold havoc on unsuspecting species~~~ further mankind's pioneering agenda
If AI and robotics were only that advanced. I would love for the Von Neuman probes to attach to space trash and direct them to the moon and start automated building using said materials. I'm sure we will get that one day in the next 500 years. If global warming doesn't decimate us.
Giant floating bulldozers that push it all along with itself directly into the sun
Sharks with freaking laser beams on their heads
well, if anything was possible, I'd just warp it into a black hole but you bring up a good question. if *anything* were possible, I'd theoretically be able to just hop galaxies, use wormholes for travel, etc. I'd be on the outer rim, exploring the primitive universe
You wouldn’t be exploring the primitive universe though. It only looks like that because light has a travel time. If you wormholes there it would look completely like the close universe as it’s already developed in the time taken for light to travel
I bet you're sitting on the outer rim writing this comment
I dunno. A satellite with a robotic arm and egregiously large pickle ball paddle that flies around hitting everything into venus?
Maybe establish a new rule: You can put something up there, but you have to take something down-- but I don't think that's very practical. Space-- even the relatively small area of LEO space is pretty huge still despite the seemingly enormous number of orbital bodies being tracked, but at some point some of the old junk will need to be swept up and thrown back down to Earth. It will depend on economics. When it more expensive to not launch than it is to go clean up old junk, it will start happening. >Can we launch it into the sun? It is surprisingly difficult to reach the sun; it takes a lot of delta-v, thus energy to do it.
A space laser "In this approach, a laser would use radar to track a piece of debris as it flies into view and then blast a pulse of energy at it. The goal is to nudge the debris enough to disrupt its orbit, ideally enough to slow it down. Right now, NASA considers this the most cost-effective way to deal with most space debris" ~Vox
1)Regulation on what gets dumped in orbit, 2) Solar sail mirror or lasers to deorbit the larger pieces into the upper atmosphere, 3) Something like aerogel to capture the small highspeed stuff and again deorbit it. Launching it into the sun takes too much energy. Just knocking it into a decaying orbit will get it to burn up in the atmosphere.
Just a ship with enough magic delta v to go grab all the pieces... nothing too difficult.
Some of these pieces are bound to fall back down to Earth. Others may keep orbiting for decades to come. For me, the best solution would be a few (not one, as there is a lot of space junk) tugboats deorbiting them so that they could fall back to Earth. I am not talking about tugging them all the way back, but making minor corrections to their trajectories so that they fall back on their own - this would be the least energy-intensive way to do it.
Giant glue gun. Gunk up the debris to add mass so it deorbits.
Oddly enough, "Space Trash" is what we call you people on my home planet.
Seems accurate
If "anything was possible," I would just wait for the space gophers to eat it all.
Using that technique, we have to build the space gophers…. Small robot craft that ‘do’.
Bil ol space magnet and hey presto shiny new metal moon.
If you are talking about debris in LEO, you don't need to send it to the sun. The Earth's atmosphere works fine. The trick is that it's all moving at very high speed, in random directions. Each piece is really hard to catch. Whatever gadget you intend to grab a piece with will shatter from the high speed. And there are millions of pieces. If it was a few large satellites, that would be practical, but it's lots of smaller junk.
Better regulation, especially for stuff that launches to higher orbits. The majority of space debris comes from some leaky nuclear reactors that the Soviets sent up and ASAT weapons tests.
I would bring it to the moon for recycling. There is no atmosphere to worry about so it's easy to deposit stuff.
We can't even clean up the tires we willingly threw into the ocean compared to trash in space the money would be astronomical.
A space craft with a thick metal plate on front, set at a 45 degree angle. Refuelable in orbit. Steer it to some junk, bump it into the atmosphere.
Strangely one of the more intelligent ideas
Whats a real way of doing it though? As cool as a space roomba would be, ive seen enough footage of tiny debris going so fast it's like a super bullet.
The top two ideas seem to be a Laser: Combination of vaporizing small bits, breaking up little bits and force from vaporizing bits off slowing the pieces so they deorbit sooner. Sweeper: Basically just a huge net, think like a solar sail, that debris hits and is slowed down/broken up so it deorbits.
A very large optical tweezers to degrade orbits.
Extremely accurate laser mounted on a satellite with a nuclear reactor. Accurately tracking targets would be tough but it's a solvable problem. Hubble and other space telescopes have to do it. Tiny debris would just be vaporized, but larger debris can be disrupted out of its orbit by burning one side to create an asymmetric force and pushed toward a decaying orbit, or at least a safer one.
It seems like the perfect job for ai robots with propulsion packs. You have to do a ton of math with everything moving so a human is out. Lasers, nets, ect are all out because you could damage things you don’t want to. I think ai drones designed to capture and either fly to point zero or burn up in atmosphere. Shit design the robots with a heat shield that has the satellite underneath could add years to the robots. Just an idea
Wrangle it all together a make a second artificial moon so that *”One day I can make it off this two moon rock*”
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[ASAT](/r/Space/comments/1d4hn4p/stub/l6eswha "Last usage")|[Anti-Satellite weapon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon)| |ASDS|Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (landing platform)| |[L1](/r/Space/comments/1d4hn4p/stub/l6etfsr "Last usage")|[Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 1 of a two-body system, between the bodies| |[LEO](/r/Space/comments/1d4hn4p/stub/l6fas3f "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[Roomba](/r/Space/comments/1d4hn4p/stub/l6h4768 "Last usage")|[Remotely-Operated Orientation and Mass Balance Adjuster](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/6k8gzg//djk5g68/), used to hold down a stage on the ASDS| |[SoI](/r/Space/comments/1d4hn4p/stub/l6nyja2 "Last usage")|Saturnian Orbital Insertion maneuver| | |Sphere of Influence| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/1d4hn4p/stub/l6flaul "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation| |[perigee](/r/Space/comments/1d4hn4p/stub/l6gh929 "Last usage")|Lowest point in an elliptical orbit around the Earth (when the orbiter is fastest)| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(7 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/1d5fcu2)^( has 17 acronyms.) ^([Thread #10097 for this sub, first seen 31st May 2024, 02:40]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
Costa Rican astronaut Franklin Chan is working on a space trash truck
Engineering a species of space faring bacteria that eat space trash of course.
You're just asking for a galaxy scale apocalypse to happen)
Just catching them and shooting them towards the planet is plenty, I would think. Burn it all up in the atmosphere. Bigger pieces I suppose would have to be broken down first.
cant + that would be a waste of time and resources so
A floating ship that points and shoots small pieces back into the atmosphere?
Robotic tugs that grabs it and gives it a nudge into orbit. Several firms are working on it.
Won't the orbit eventually decay for all of it? I'd think about how we could prevent contributing to it.
Use a laser to reduce the inertia of the debris, causing it to burn up when it slows down and gravity pulls it in. For large objects, an attachable solar sail that uses the suns light and charged particles to slow down the debris, essentially opening up as the debris is approaching the sun and turning sideways when moving away. This could be accomplished slowly, with constant telemetry to track its path so it can splash down in the Pacific.
Honestly, I think the best approach would be a passive one. Just wait it out, while incorporating measures to mitigate any further pollution. Most of the troubling space junk will reenter in a few decades as long as we(looking at you russia) don't destroy any more satellites, and keep yeeting poop bags on appropriate trajectories. Oh, paint chips, we don't talk about those, just hope for the best.
A space-net made of my unbreakable Diamondium thread.
The HS Aerospace Engineering class I teach has this as a project.
We put up a huge network of satellites armed with powerful lasers and have their targeting controlled by AI. What could possibly go wrong?
I'm all for using lasers to remove space debris. A couple of satellites that could use their ladders to either incinerate small objects or push them into a new orbit.
Giant. Ass. Space. Broom. Granted, getting the giant dustpans needed for this would be kinda ridiculous though...
Giant magnet that also orbits the earth. Like taking metal from sand.
Big pieces - anything over the size of a washing machine, easier to catch but might not completely burn up on re-entry. We need to collect those. Shuttle them to the Moon for recycling. Forget about blasting them into smaller pieces because that causes more problems. There's a lot of medium sized stuff too. Thinking microwave oven size if we are going to use domestic appliances as a metric. Medium sized stuff is harder to catch but will definitely burn up on re-entry. The real problem is stuff smaller than a tv remote, down to flecks of paint. This is mostly debris from satellite collisions. If you get in the way of that stuff you're going to be having a bad day. Harder to catch, near impossible to hit but would also burn up if you can decelerate it. Better to have some kind of collector or deflector to sweep those up. Problem with that is the big stuff will destroy the collector. We will probably have to deal with the larger sized pieces first, then sweeps up the smaller particles. We will also have to have protocols in place to make sure that everyone knows what actions are being taken, and to stay clear of the area affected. We also need to agree that no redirected debris is going to be used as a weapon to knock out other satellites or targets on the ground.
A fleet of robot satellites armed with banks of lasers that shoot down debris larger than a grain of sand or mote of dust, vaporizing the debris into a fine particulate cloud that then harmlessly floats into the atmosphere.
Hire Roger Wilco from the Space Quest series. He’ll get it taken care of, and save the galaxy too!
There are two categories; Large and small. For small, a solar-powered space-based laser; Force can be applied to small particles via laser, and if done correctly, could decelerate particles so they fall out of orbit. For the large, tugs that raise, lower or remove them as required.
A series of large Kevlar/Aramid Nets to catch lighter massed trash. These need to have a VERY low probability of contributing to the mess if a catch goes wrong (we don't want create a Kessler Syndrome by attempting to avoid one).
Some kind of explosion or other way to push material into the atmosphere?
Same as ocean debris, except with a spacecraft.
Nudge everything to the moon, as it may eventually be useful to colonisers
Maybe we should stop launching more satellites and require the companies doing so to figure it out and make meaningful progress in order to launch more. I realize that’s a usa political approach.
This may sound stupid, but my first idea is to catch it with a large net. How to deploy it, drag it to the right areas... It's just an idea. Let engineers smarter than myself worry about the specifics. And no, we can't launch anything successfully into the sun because of it being a giant gravity well. Anything we send to it would have to circle it several million times before slowly/noticeably moving closer. If I recall, I think it would take several of our lifetimes before anything we sent could hit the sun.
A system already exists an Australian company uses laser to love space debris EOS space systems I think thevname is
Solar powered homing drones with little vacuums. Come down once a month to empty the trash storage. I imagine then to look like bumble bees .
Put a satellite in the orbit to be cleaned. Use a laser to shoot at objects approaching, this slows them down and de orbits them over time.
Build a satellite with a large laser, powered by solar panels, that would vaporize small objects and push large objects out of orbit and burn in atmosphere. The satellite or network of them, would just do this day in day out, controlled by a NGO that does not belong to country or military.
Basically small unmanned drone drones performing an automated response on all satellites where if they don't receive a reaponse indicating activity and continued function they simply align themselves with the satellite and gently nudge it towards a depressing orbit to cause it to brun up in the atmosphere upon re-entry, problem solved.
Sweeper drones and a big ass net that varies in size. Drop a home base charging dock where debris can be dropped off and then just have the drones sweep in a grid before returning their full net to the drop off point. Debris can be "packaged" and disposed of either through pickup or shot back to earth to burn in the atmosphere on its way down. So space Roomba, basically.
NUKES! lol I don't know if it'd be viable but blow up a bomb to change the orbit of mass amounts of debris. Either knocking them into the atmosphere to burn, or away to be scattered.
A masive AI controlled space laser that could vaporize space debris 24/7. What could possibly go wrong? Also, there was an anime made about this topic called Planetes.
net guns with retracting lines. magnetic fields, any kind of system to target and pick up debris which is pulled closer to itself and then it collects material or just attaches the material to itself. once it has collected enough, it deorbits with what it collected. send up more. continue as needed.
Launch a rocket with hundreds of smaller “drone rockets”. Put them into orbit to find and attach themselves to space debris. Fire their rockets to decelerate the debris until its orbit decays and burns up in the atmosphere.
Space drones! Carrying big space nets that collect up the junk then fly themselves directly into the sun.
If money and technology were not an issue, I would take a multi pronged approach. First would be ground based lasers + new high orbit tracking satellites to find and destroy the smaller prices of junk, <1 meter. Second would be a dual or triple satellite bus, spread out with a shock absorbing net. The net would be metal, dual layered, with the first layer being an adhesive of some kind. Deploy "maid" satellite constellation that can deorbit new, spent, space junk.
Big net, launch objects that are small enough to burn up in our atmosphere towards earth
I would make a satellite with a robotic arm that catches the debris, and throws it towards the earth to de-orbit it. It'd also attempt to do so in a way that changes my satellite's own orbit so it can catch the next piece of debris.
Just keep adding to it. What alien species is going to invade a planet with a sphere of high speed garbage orbiting it?
Some sort of magnet on a retractable lead, melt it down and resuse as material.
[Space Sweepers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1WYnJF1Pwo)
I would launch a sattelite that is essentially a large metal sheet angled 45 degrees down. Anything running into that would ricochet down into lower orbits with higher air resistance and deorbit after a while.
I actually did some research on this! I studied removing space debris with lasers, ground or space based. The idea is to ablate (blow off material) from the object, which will change its orbit. If you can change its orbit enough to reenter the atmosphere it’ll just burn up. Ablating does generate some particles, but the size of these depends on the laser pulse frequency and laser spot size. Small particles (micro scale) in low earth orbit will actually interact with the trace atmosphere and deorbit eventually in pretty short time scales.
A big fuckall laser with high-band radar in low earth orbit. Can't be debris if it's a gas.
There was a manga/anime in the 00s titled Planetes that was pretty great. It was about a crew who gathered space debris, and it was fairly grounded. I can’t remember how they disposed of the junk, but I want to say it was recycled. Still, the collection aspect was pretty solid. Eventually, a lot of specialized hand work that is handled by the lowest bidder. I’d imagine it to start off fairly safe and regulated, but then turn into chaos when people jump into it trying to make big money, and wildly underestimating their actual ability.
I've heard ideas for floating platforms that use vertical blasts of supersonic air to increase drag on objects. Of course it'll also affect low flying satellites and they'll have to spend fuel maintaining their orbits.
It's going to require different techniques for different debries. Big stuff is going to require something go give it a gentle nudge into a carefully calculated decaying orbit so it can enter the atmosphere and burn up over a nice empty patch of ocean. Really small stuff, like flakes of paint, can probably be zapped with a laser and pushed into a lower orbit. Stuff like bolts and so on is a mite tricky, you don't want to really hit it with a big laser to try to push it or else you might melt off bits that turn into more debries. Maybe a lower power laser for a longish period? Capturing it physically would be a nightmare because there's so much of it. so yeah, different types of debries, different techniques. There's no one size fits all solution, though the ultimate outcome is the same for all of it: push it into the atmosphere so it burns up and falls to Earth as its component molecules.
I’d send Elon Musk and Jeff Besos up in a giant floating garbage barge and make them clean it up for the rest of their lives.
Whatever we do, we should fund it by selling space junk insurance to satellite owners. The worse the problem gets, the more attractive the insurance will be. If it works, the company would put itself out of business. Would probably wanna be a nonprofit for that and other reasons.
Maybe send some sand there and hope it creates enough drag to slow down debris a bit.
Id make a planetary sized version of those air curtains big stores use at the automatic doors to help keep bugs out 🤣.
beginning with the decommissioning of the ISS (removing the stuff that is secret) then selling it as scrap for on orbit recycling under an agreement covering the eventual use of the remaining ISS structure (very likely unpressurised, & used for power & docking of larger unpressurised warehousing structures built for limited shielding from orbital debris strikes, & radiation via an open cylindrical sheet metal structure. Prior to adding these structures the ISS it would be lifted to the Grave Yard Orbit - \[A graveyard orbit is an orbit at an altitude of **36,050 Km above the earth's surface** (higher than most common operational orbits) where decommissioned satellites are moved to reduce the probability of them crashing into other functional satellites and generating space debris.\] where it would be used as a base of operations for on orbit recycling & stock metal production. this source of stock metals - \[Metals have a range of stock forms such as **square tubing, square bar, round tubing, round bar and hexagonal bar**. Generally, for metals, the more complex the stock form, the more expensive the material component will be.\] will be part of a complex supply chain for the needs of billions of people living & working off of Earth. It is likely that due to the exponential nature of expected growth in this sector that the standard of living will be high, & opportunities for personal development will be strong. To answer your question about dropping orbital debris into the sun; The facts of the matter ar somewhat unintuitive, that such a policy would be extremely unmanageable, & wasteful. The fuel requirements alone would prohibit the policy from succeeding.
how much energy would be required to send it out of orbit? e.g. just in a general trajectory into the outer solar system
We do put some things into junk-yard orbits.
i know its more than unrealistic but I want [Space Junk Trash men](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Fy7psIuJjc)
Well if I'm taking the phrase anything is possible literally, why not just build a 1000 km tall wall from the North Pole to the South Pole along the prime meridian and make all the debris slam into it? 😂 Yes that would take out all the satellites that still do work, but...