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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

#81

Post by silent_cal »

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…

I didn't mean to make it code - space flight is a complete waste of money. As far as I'm concerned we've already proved our point with regard to space travel, and can now afford to spend those bajillions of dollars on planet earth instead of satisfying the curiosity of nerds.

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

#82

Post by silent_cal »

decremental wrote: post #13
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.

The issue with space debris is that on our current trajectory, at some point in the future, there will be so much debris traveling so fast that future space exploration will be impossible because we'll never get anything off the planet. Not to mention we won't be able to have satellites. Possibly a nerd grift but the issue is important.

Then we should stop shooting junk into outer space. I don't see why this is so complicated.

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

#83

Post by dr_dshiv »

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?

Maybe use lasers to ablate material on the debris, creating propulsion? Creates liability, though..

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

#84

Post by dotancohen »

rich_sasha wrote: post #77
thatguy0900 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you can ablate the leading surface (if the object is not spinning quickly, which honestly is unlikely) then the ejected plasma may push the perigee either into the atmosphere or at least to a higher-drag altitude.

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

#86

Post by dotancohen »

jjoonathan wrote: post #56
SonicScrub wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Requiring de-orbiting at EOL would destroy their business no? Also EOL de-orbiting works great for low-altitude orbits, but becomes exponentially more difficult with higher orbits. It is pretty much impossible with the very valuable geostationary orbital slots.

How valuable are geostationary slots these days? LEO swarms have eaten some of the GEO lunch. What are the niches where LEO swarms aren't a workable replacement?

Communications over a specific geographic region and budget for only one bird and/or only one launch.

That's pretty much most of the world's nations' telecommunication needs. SpaceX has put up at least half a dozen satellites for small nations meeting these very common requirements.

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

#87

Post by kbenson »

mcdonje wrote: post #50
SonicScrub wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This could work, but would limit effectiveness to the orbits that MUST be very specific to work. For most satellites this doesn't matter. If 500 km is clogged, you design your mission to work at 505 km. I could see something like this working for geostationary orbits and sun-synchronous orbits as they require specific altitudes and inclinations, but not for much else.

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.

Only because space debris are a negative externality at this time. If there was an (international) way to fine companies based on the trash they left in orbit, this would all be very straightforward.

There's thankfully a very obvious repercussion to leaving stuff in orbit that anyone planning to put something in orbit can see in obvious ways, unlike the delayed and hard to account for impact on the climate any one company will have.

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

#88

Post by toss1 »

So many comments here focusing on de-orbiting. Of course for any new satellite, end-of-life de-orbiting should be a part of the initial design, engineering, & build.

However, for existing dead satellites & debris that is above atmospheric decay in reasonable times, I wonder if it would actually be more effective/efficient (in terms of cost, delta-V, scheduling, etc.) to 'herd' the junk into a more out-of-the-way location for future use. It seems once on-orbit manufacturing starts, it'd be useful to have a lot o high-quality material up out of the gravity well, and all of that stuff has already had huge investment to get it to orbit in the first place.

Any astro engineers have any insights?

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

#89

Post by dotancohen »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #31
decremental wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with space debris is that on our current trajectory, at some point in the future, there will be so much debris traveling so fast that future space exploration will be impossible because we'll never get anything off the planet. Not to mention we won't be able to have satellites. Possibly a nerd grift but the issue is important.

> The issue with space debris is that on our current trajectory, at some point in the future, there will be so much debris traveling so fast that future space exploration will be impossible The issue is keeping things in orbit not space exploration. Realistically going through is never going to be a problem. The worst that might happen is that you need some monitoring and manoeuverability on-board of your spacecraft…

The problem is the statistics.

_Your_ launch will be very unlikely to be hit by debris, but _one of_ the 86400 manned spaceflights per day will be hit. And now you've lost not only the 200 souls onboard but also a portion of the city that the suborbital spacecraft was on a trajectory towards as the punctured hull falls short of the landing pad.

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

#90

Post by C19is20 »

aero-glide2 wrote: post #9
wongarsu wrote: post #5

It will be interesting to see how they are planning to earn money. The only ones willing to expend resources on space cleanup right now seem to be ESA (the European Space Agency).

They should lobby for a law requiring companies to deorbit satellites after EOL.

Under what/ which/ whos jurisdiction?
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