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

independent.co.uk

181–190 of 264 posts

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

#181

A few weeks ago, on the launch of the amazing company Turion Space, I wrote this comment, which I believe still applies here, - Congratulations on the launch! I am excited for what you're building. I also love your website. :) This comment isn't meant to be negative. What you're doing is exciting and amazing. Nothing anyone says should detract from that. However, I have broader questions and (market) skepticism after…

All good points.

>The hard capture business is the national security business.

This one is what makes it particularly messy. Everything in space is somehow related to defense and natsec, even if it doesn't seem so to an outsider. Even with hypothetical agreements in place, touching defunct space assets is just a huge can of worms, even with a laser beam. And anything that can capture a satellite is an outright military tech.

Same goes for on-orbit refueling and servicing, although these are a bit easier since they typically deal with functioning satellites.

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

#182
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…

Crazy idea: can new satellites be assembled from the parts of old ones: the parts are already in orbit, you can’t reuse chips, but you can reuse solar panels, wires, external walls, etc.

Crazy idea: can new boats be assembled from the wrecks of old boats: the parts are already in the ocean, you can't reuse metal, but you could reuse masts, wood, and hulls, etc.

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

#183
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…

I've seen this kind of things in many works of science fiction, but it makes a lot of sense when you think about it even for non-space related salvage.

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

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy idea: can new satellites be assembled from the parts of old ones: the parts are already in orbit, you can’t reuse chips, but you can reuse solar panels, wires, external walls, etc.

Crazy idea: can new boats be assembled from the wrecks of old boats: the parts are already in the ocean, you can't reuse metal, but you could reuse masts, wood, and hulls, etc.

So you are saying it’s possible?

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

#185
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I don't claim that Wozniak has any business running a space junk cleanup company - I am confused about your requirement that all founders must be serially successful ones for any of their ventures to matter.

Because it ends up as just noise. If there’s no track record of execution, there’s little hope if any that this will be fruitful in any capacity.

Does execution really matter? Elon Musk exists.

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

#186
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…

Reminds me of Salvage 1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvage_1), Andy Griffith goes to the moon in 1979!

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

#187
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…

Thank you. I could not figure out the business proposition behind it from the release.

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

#188
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy idea: can new boats be assembled from the wrecks of old boats: the parts are already in the ocean, you can't reuse metal, but you could reuse masts, wood, and hulls, etc.

So you are saying it’s possible?

Yea this thread hurts my brain, I legitimately can't tell.

But I believe it would be, Water World style. Why not re-purpose scrap parts, you could even make other helper robots with the scrap.

I'm reminded of Seveneves with the robots that make more robots tk make more and bigger robots. Man I'm gonna re-read that now.

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

#189
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)?

At least at geosynchronous altitude it seems like it would be significantly biased in the direction of Earth's rotation, especially along geostationary orbit.

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

#190
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…

There was a Korean movie about a vaguely similar topic: salvaging space debris that I enjoyed

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12838766/

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