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Scientists sounded the alarm Tuesday over the problems posed to space missions from orbital junk—the accumulating debris from mankind's six-decade exploration of the cosmos.
In less than a quarter of a century, the number of orbiting fragments large enough to destroy a spacecraft has more than doubled, a conference in Germany heard.
And the estimated tally of tiny objects—which can harm or degrade spacecraft in the event of a collision, and are hard to track—is now around 150 million.
"We are very much concerned," said Rolf Densing, director of operations at the European Space Agency (ESA), pleading for a worldwide effort to tackle the mess.
"This problem can only be solved globally."
Travelling at up to 28,000 kilometres (17,500 miles) per hour, even a minute object impacts with enough energy to damage the surface of a satellite or manned spacecraft.
If you always wondered why the Death Star had a trash compactor, here's your answer.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday April 20 2017, @07:38AM (3 children)
Send up a solar powered satellite laser that with time burns material surfaces such that the vaporized material push the junk closer and closer to the atmosphere and eventually burn up? It of course has to be guided by a database of objects to not de-orbit.
Any other method with better economic performance?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by butthurt on Thursday April 20 2017, @08:34AM (1 child)
During the late 1990s, the U.S. Air Force's Project Orion was a laser-broom design. Although a test-bed device was scheduled to launch on a Space Shuttle in 2003, international agreements banning powerful laser testing in orbit limited its use to measurements.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris#External_removal [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 20 2017, @08:09PM
The fact the project manager wore a shiny black helmet with a noisy breather device didn't help the idea along.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 20 2017, @04:46PM
So the James bond villains were actually trying to help everyone before the problem got bad?
Then they went insane when the stupid people sent hardcore agents after them and now they just play with the shark pool attaching lasers to their heads!