Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

independent.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 264 posts

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

#121

Post by giantrobot »

SonicScrub wrote: post #58
mnd999 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m guessing they be planning on offering their services to carry out said de-orbit. Lobbying for regulation mandating a service you provide is a pretty tried and tested business model. Every company IT audit I’ve ever had the pleasure of participating in works the same way.

The most efficient way to de-orbit the satellite is to design it with de-orbit capability built in. Satellites already have maneuvering thrusters with propellant and/or "kicker" stages to maneuver them in their destination orbit. De-orbiting capability is just some extra delta-v onboard, and a de-orbit maneuver coded into the flight computer. "Space-tug" like services from a third-party would be vastly more expensive…

> De-orbiting capability is just some extra delta-v onboard, and a de-orbit maneuver coded into the flight computer.

It's not "just" some delta-v, it's the same amount of delta-v as the original perigee kick. Most satellites get their perigee kick from a booster stage from their launch vehicle that separates from the satellite and de-orbits.

Every gram of mass of fuel and engine on a satellite is a gram less of payload.

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

#122

Post by jcun4128 »

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…

What happened to the space broom/lasers idea. I guess could make things worse if the satellite "explodes".

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

#123

Post by ctdonath »

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 space stuff moves a lot of terrestrial stuff off-planet. Telecommunications has physical impact, much of it still wired and strung/buried across very long distances, or otherwise occupying space for lots of grounded towers. Sending that garbage (rhetorical or literal future) up solves your “worry about” for that industry. Yeah it matters.

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

#124

Post by klausjensen »

larsiusprime wrote: post #24
shantara wrote: post #6

What is their business model? This is far from first space debris cleanup company, but regardless of their technical capabilities, all of them are useless until the regulations introduce a requirement for the launch providers and satellite owners to clean their mess.

Lobby for pigouvian taxes on the creators of space junk and contract to fix the problem, getting paid out of that fund?

I googled it so you do not have to...:

"A Pigovian (Pigouvian) tax is a tax assessed against private individuals or businesses for engaging in activities that create adverse side effects for society."

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

#125

Post by Zanni »

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.

Well, if we're imagining dystopian science-fiction stories in this vein, let's say that the salvage company automates their cleanup with an AI approximately as sophisticated as YouTube. Now every satellite launch is subject to malicious "take down" requests from competitors along with the whimsies of the algorithm.

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

#126

Post by ilamont »

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?

2020: Wozniak’s latest venture is called Efforce and aims to use cryptocurrency and blockchain technology to make it cheaper and easier for companies to fund ‘green’ projects.

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/technology/apple-co-founde...

2017: Steve "Woz" Wozniak, cofounder of Apple Computer and inventor of the Apple II computer, announced on Friday the launch of his latest startup, Woz U.

https://www.inc.com/business-insider/steve-woz-wozniak-apple...

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

#127

Post by quelltext »

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…

This is completely off topic but what accent is the narrator speaking?

He pronounces "research" as "resorch"/"resauch", "greater" as "greator" etc. and in other regards it seems to flip between American to slightly British English.

Never heard this accent before.

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

#128

Post by newman8r »

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?

I'd be interested in seeing a startup he's intimately involved with as a true cofounder. If he's just on board for name recognition/funding I'm less intrigued.

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

#129

Post by jmcomets »

vsareto wrote: post #113
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…

>Higher orbit junk is what really matters, and will require much more delta-v to reach, and then again to de-orbit after "docking". Wait, why? The lower orbit stuff traverses less space so it's easier to make it more dense and hazardous to space travel through that space.

With my very basic understanding of orbital mechanics, higher orbits require more dV simply because it's further from Earth.

The more interesting bit is that subtle orbital adjustments require much less dV in higher orbits than in lower ones.

I like to think of it like pushing a barrel uphill: it takes more effort if the slope is steep, but then once it's up there, it's a lot easier to get the barrel moving downhill.

Anyways, the "de-orbit" cost follows the same rule of higher being more costly in dV, the big difference with an ascension being that the atmosphere slowing you down is what you want (aerobraking is the word, I think?). So the difference in dV between a high orbit and a low orbit descent isn't proportionate to that of the ascent, if that makes any sense.

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

#130

Post by gipp »

genericone wrote: post #119
mc32 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 not hunting nets per say, maybe just a huge trawling net, or some sort of trawling-foam since we're in space. As high velocity objects begin to hit it, the foam will gain speed, but overtime, with presumably random speed-object collisions, the foam and its captured contents should have their speed reduced to 0 and fall. Doesn't need to be in foam or net form, but it does need to be a massive-entanglement-object…

I'm probably under thinking this, but wouldn't the overall momentum of the debris be conserved so you'd have a bias in debris velocity in whatever direction the original objects were orbiting (presumably not random)?
Post reply on HN