...because the longer we leave it, the harder it becomes. This NY Times article makes pretty disturbing reading - apparently space junk, once a nuisance, is becoming a distinct threat to future space missions. Of course, it might provide a good answer to The Fermi Paradox - there are aliens on other planets, but they've all trapped themselves under blankets of orbital shrapnel.
11 comments:
Couldn't they make a really really really big vaccuum cleaner to suck all the space junk away?
Just wondering... :-P
You would have thought that they'd (launchers) have thought of that, wouldn't you... and might try to arrange to minimize the crap up there... Hey, I wonder if it's affacted global warming, too?
sp.anti-vaccum
I say the way to sweep it up is a series of monstrous balloons, filled with a little gas, orbiting the Earth at a higher speed than the junk that's up there, most of which will still be travelling at about the same speed it was moving when it first became space junk. A precessional orbit should logically sweep an entire band of sky pretty clean in a short time.
Then you just change altitude slightly, lather, rinse and repeat.
Excellent, put the Earth on a spin cycle
Wouldn't they just pop with the first collision?
Wouldn't they just pop with the first collision?
(I think the picture above is of an alien craft - For years now, aliens have been littering our world's atmosphere, cause they've seen what a mess we've made of it, and they don't want us to be able to leave and visit theirs)
I don't think they'd pop. The idea would be to use them as bulldozers. Make the skin out of borosilicate fibre and the balloon should act as a giant net, with a bit of give.
Perhaps we could suggest to the Chinese that a space-based LASER weapon could vaporise a few bits and pieces?
Is her sister an astroaunt?
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