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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

#61

Post by halfmatthalfcat »

yunohn wrote: post #59
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?

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.

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

#62

Post by cobrabyte »

JBorrow wrote: post #16
eatmyshorts wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that will change very quickly when we have a collision in space. I imagine SpaceX, for instance, would be pretty interested in cleaning up space junk if two of their LEO satellites collide.

Pretty sure that SpaceX is enough of an environmental disaster already that they won't care.

How so?

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

#63

Post by jedgardyson »

quxbar wrote: post #46

Great hard sci-fi manga series using this concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes

As a note, the manga is a lot less "hard" but no less enjoyable than the anime. For the anime they had a bunch of space folks consult to fix things up so if the space faring details bother you watch that.

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

#64

Post by ctdonath »

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?

Because Woz.

Even naysayers took time to read &/| post.

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

#65

Post by legutierr »

everyone wrote: post #35
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 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.

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

#67

Post by tecleandor »

tomrod wrote: post #47
JBorrow wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure that SpaceX is enough of an environmental disaster already that they won't care.

What do you mean?

Probably one of these themes:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-risky-rush-fo...

https://qz.com/1971751/a-flood-of-spacex-satellites-started-...

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

#68

Post by spockz »

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.

Obviously the fix for this is to let the one that wants to have the satellite in that orbit pay for the cleaning of that orbit instead of some government.

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

#69

Post by HyperLinear »

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.

Its called the Kessler syndrome. Small fast moving debris crashing into larger fast moving debris destroying it creating even more smaller fast moving debris that keeps crashing into more debris etc etc etc.

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

#70

Post by SonicScrub »

spockz wrote: post #68
SonicScrub wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Obviously the fix for this is to let the one that wants to have the satellite in that orbit pay for the cleaning of that orbit instead of some government.

I should still pre-emptively trash some valuable Sun-Synchronous orbits before anyone else launches. Incentive is still there!
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