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Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit

independent.co.uk

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Re: Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit

#71

Post by Razengan »

ud_0 wrote: post #57
silent_cal wrote: post #10

This space stuff is such a waste. There is enough garbage on the surface of the earth to worry about. Just nerd grifting IMO.

> There is enough garbage on the surface of the earth to worry about. Every single time there is anything happening with space flight, there is at least one comment saying "We should literally solve every single problem here on Earth first before even thinking about anything related to space". This seems like a pretty shallow code for space flight should not happen, ever . I've been wondering about the people who mak…

“Only do shit that immediately improves my own life.”

Re: Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit

#72

Post by spywaregorilla »

SonicScrub wrote: post #34
shantara wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most realistic solution for space junk deorbiting I've seen is the recently tested electromagnetic tether ("Terminator tape"). It is a passive solution that does not require an external spacecraft, and could be activated by a satellite operator when a satellite reaches the end of its lifespan. Perhaps, such system should be made mandatory, maybe even going as far as adding a dead man switch for its automatic acti…

This would work great for defunct satellites, but does nothing to solve the bigger space-junk danger: random bits and pieces of things from stage separations and previous collisions that are difficult to track. Definitely a step in the right direction, but it won't solve the largest threat.

They shouldn't be difficult to track by an object in space with a laser I would think?

edit: curious why the downvotes? Would a device in space with a LIDAR type of device not be very well suited to tracking small objects that are difficult to identify with cameras from earth?

Re: Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit

#73

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

mc32 wrote: post #51
cletus wrote: post #18

So here's a potential business model for this: salvage rights. When ships sink, the owner generally still retains ownership of any property. Sometimes the location of the wreck is known. Sometimes it needs to be found. It can cost a lot of money to find a wreck and recover any property. So salvage rights are a principle of maritime law such that whoever does this is entitled to a reward commensurate with the value of…

At the speeds those things whiz by, what sort of materials are there that can withstand impacts and not create more debris? Or do they try to do it via relative speeds and say let them hit the "paddle" at 50mph? And in that case, might it not be more effective to have hunting "nets" to collect the objects?

if you are moving with the almost the same speed and in the same direction as the debris, then there is a very small impact.

Re: Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit

#74

Post by Ajedi32 »

SonicScrub wrote: post #14

I'm very skeptical of the technical challenges associated with this problem (business model and financing aside). The amount of delta-v required to perform maneuvers to repeatedly "dock" with different pieces of space junk, and then again to de-orbit is very high. You MIGHT be able to de-orbit on the order of magnitude of ~10 pieces of low-earth orbit debris per mission. Maybe. If you're really good. And low-earth or…

Maybe instead of de-orbiting debris they could collect it into a small number of well-known locations. Instead of 10k pieces of space junk to avoid in a particular orbit you could just have one or two. Might have less demanding delta-v requirements that way.

Re: Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit

#75

Post by h2odragon »

legutierr wrote: post #65
everyone wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the most promising idea I've heard of... https://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/early_stage_innovation/niac...

So the solution is to eject our atmosphere into space in order to eliminate space junk? Space junk constantly increases over time, so more and more pulses are required to clear out the junk, so more and more of our atmosphere is ejected into space for this purpose. There is absolutely no way that this could go wrong.

Bad news for you: The moon steals tons of our atmosphere every year... Far more gets lost past that.

Re: Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit

#76

Post by h2odragon »

andjd wrote: post #55

Does anyone else see Wozniak as the headliner and shrug? He has no track-record of successful companies since Apple. Why is this news and why did it hit the front page of HN?

Every "space company" has to have a celebrity name attached to it, right? Even if they're not really a celebrity and no one remembers why they were famous.

I'm cynical about the actual need for the proposed service, but I wouldn't begrudge Woz the opportunity to rent his name out for joy or cash.

Re: Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit

#77

Post by rich_sasha »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #28
SonicScrub wrote: post #14

I'm very skeptical of the technical challenges associated with this problem (business model and financing aside). The amount of delta-v required to perform maneuvers to repeatedly "dock" with different pieces of space junk, and then again to de-orbit is very high. You MIGHT be able to de-orbit on the order of magnitude of ~10 pieces of low-earth orbit debris per mission. Maybe. If you're really good. And low-earth or…

I remember a idea to use lasers to burn up space debris. Would you be able to just launch somd kind of weapons platform to handle space debris rather than trying to attach and slow them down?

Unless you vapourise the debris, you just turned it into chunks of smaller debris, travelling at the same velocity.

Re: Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit

#78

Post by Ajedi32 »

legutierr wrote: post #65
everyone wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the most promising idea I've heard of... https://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/early_stage_innovation/niac...

So the solution is to eject our atmosphere into space in order to eliminate space junk? Space junk constantly increases over time, so more and more pulses are required to clear out the junk, so more and more of our atmosphere is ejected into space for this purpose. There is absolutely no way that this could go wrong.

I doubt much, if any, of the air in those pulses would actually reach escape velocity.

Re: Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit

#79

Post by h2odragon »

croon wrote: post #15
silent_cal wrote: post #10

This space stuff is such a waste. There is enough garbage on the surface of the earth to worry about. Just nerd grifting IMO.

Space debris is exponential. It only takes one piece getting a good hit on a satellite to create thousands more.

> one piece getting a good hit on a satellite to create thousands more.

... and then what happens? Most of those pieces retain their location and momentum. "Blowing up a satellite" converts it into a cloud of smaller particles in the same orbit, possibly with some random spray, but this is not quite like billiard balls without friction.

Re: Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit

#80

Post by dotancohen »

SonicScrub wrote: post #52
mcdonje wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An incentive appears to exist to wait for collisions every once in a while so that there's more junk at different levels to clean up, and to prove the need for cleaning up junk.

1) Be Space debris company 2) Setup shadow satellite corporation 3) Satellite corp launches satellite to valuable orbit, and intentionally separates into 2-3 easily caught pieces. "Oops! Our satellite failed" 4) space debris company cleans up the orbit quickly and easily, receives bounty from government agency 5) Profit A little far-fetched maybe, but there's a good sci-fi short story wrapped up in there.

6) Shadow satellite corporation contracted to destroy Beidu navigation system.
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