I know, I have hammered on this a lot, but it IS an interesting problem that needs to be dealt with.
From the Dvice article:
From the Dvice article:
- NASA estimates that "there are more than 21,000 orbital debris objects larger than 10 centimeters (roughly four inches) in diameter in low Earth orbit and approximately 500,000 object particles between one and 10 centimeters, with the number of debris particles smaller than one centimeter in excess of 100 million."
100 million people 100 million! Not an easy cleanup for sure but there might be an easier way that doesn't involve satellites that would trap, skim or just plain blow stuff up.
From the Naval Research Lab comes a really different idea. They suggest boosting 10 to 20 tons of tungsten dust into low Earth orbit. This would form a gigantic "cloud" that would impart huge drag on anything small passing through it. One or two passes and the object start to de-orbit all on their own. Plus the beauty of the dust system consists of particles so small that it has no effect on larger rockets passing through and the beauty is that it cleans itself up as well! Just as it de-orbits small pieces of debris it has the same result on it's own material, slowly de-orbiting and burning up in the upper atmosphere like so much cosmic dust!
read the complete article here
