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?
Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit
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Re: Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit
#202Does 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?
Musk has a name re: Space based on accomplishments, hands down. Branson's move extends the Virgin enterprises, and Bezos has a similar business plan and track record as Branson. But now comes Woz, older and much later to the game, and with no background of experience.
His name, face, and personality will bring in investors, though, I'm sure.
Re: Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit
#203Earlier 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?
Things that are not rigid and that distribute the force throughout the body (think of slapping a big slab of silicone).
Re: Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit
#204It 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).
Re: Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit
#205Wonder why he visited AMOS, and in what capacity? It's a cool place to visit, but unless Woz has the appropriate clearances, he's not likely to get much out of his visit.
Re: Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit
#206There was a hard-scifi manga/anime about this almost 20 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes "The story of Planetes follows the crew of the DS-12 "Toy Box" of the Space Debris Section, a unit of Technora Corporation. Debris Section's purpose is to prevent the damage or destruction of satellites, space stations and spacecraft from collision with debris (so-called "space debris") in Earth's and the Moon's…
Re: Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit
#207Re: Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit
#208Re: Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit
#209Does 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?
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.
Re: Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit
#210I'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…