How bad will the Space Junk problem get?

See:

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/spacetravel-04i.html

and

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/sc...e/06orbi.html?

How bad will the space junk problem get?

Will Earth orbit become too dangerous for manned Spacecraft?

Will future satellites have to be armored in order to survive?

Is there any practical way to clean up the mess up there?

wrote:
Is there any practical way to clean up the mess up there?

Yes. Electrodynamic tethers can haul cargo cheaply in low (up to 1000
km altitude) orbits.

wrote in message
oups.com...

Is there any practical way to clean up the mess up there?

I once wrote a short sf story where I recommended a series of
counter-orbiting foam spheres:

Deadly Debris
http://members.aol.com/howiecombs/deaddebr.htm

I have no real idea whether such a thing would work in the real world or
not, though.

--


Regards,
Mike Combs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth
I bid you stand, Men of the West!
Aragorn

In article .com,
" wrote:

wrote:
Is there any practical way to clean up the mess up there?

Yes. Electrodynamic tethers can haul cargo cheaply in low (up to 1000
km altitude) orbits.

In addition, pizza is especially yummy with sausage.

Joe Strout wrote:
In article .com,
" wrote:

wrote:
Is there any practical way to clean up the mess up there?
Yes. Electrodynamic tethers can haul cargo cheaply in low (up to 1000
km altitude) orbits.

In addition, pizza is especially yummy with sausage.

Cite.

--
It Came From Corry Lee Smith's Unclaimed Mysteries.
http://www.unclaimedmysteries.net
Keep your head and arms inside the Mixer at all times.

Unclaimed Mysteries wrote:
Joe Strout wrote:
In article .com,
" wrote:

wrote:
Is there any practical way to clean up the mess up there?
Yes. Electrodynamic tethers can haul cargo cheaply in low (up to 1000
km altitude) orbits.

In addition, pizza is especially yummy with sausage.

Cite.

Another usenet classic.

You guys sure are in good form today.

--
The Tsiolkovsky Group : http://www.lifeform.org

My Planetary BLOB : http://cosmic.lifeform.org

Get A Free Orbiter Space Flight Simulator :

http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/orbit.html

kT wrote:
Unclaimed Mysteries wrote:
Joe Strout wrote:
In article .com,
" wrote:

wrote:
Is there any practical way to clean up the mess up there?
Yes. Electrodynamic tethers can haul cargo cheaply in low (up to 1000
km altitude) orbits.

In addition, pizza is especially yummy with sausage.

Cite.

Another usenet classic.

You guys sure are in good form today.


Does that mean I also get to complain about your .sig being longer than
four lines? I miss those days.

--
It Came From Corry Lee Smith's Unclaimed Mysteries.
http://www.unclaimedmysteries.net
Keep your head and arms inside the Mixer at all times.

Mike Combs wrote:
I once wrote a short sf story where I recommended a series of
counter-orbiting foam spheres:

Deadly Debrishttp://members.aol.com/howiecombs/deaddebr.htm

I have no real idea whether such a thing would work in the real world or
not, though.

If the foam has the total cross-section of one square kilometer, it
would take a few thousand years to do the job. It would be cheaper to
sprinkle Moon dust in Earth orbit. The dust would also cool the Earth.
Big pieces of junk should be handled by robots.

By the way, we should hold Nuremberg style trials for the *******s who
created this mess!

Unclaimed Mysteries wrote:
kT wrote:
Unclaimed Mysteries wrote:
Joe Strout wrote:
In article .com,
" wrote:

wrote:
Is there any practical way to clean up the mess up there?
Yes. Electrodynamic tethers can haul cargo cheaply in low (up to 1000
km altitude) orbits.

In addition, pizza is especially yummy with sausage.

Cite.

Another usenet classic.

You guys sure are in good form today.

Does that mean I also get to complain about your .sig being longer than
four lines? I miss those days.

So it should be less than three lines with no paragraph spaces?

I used to be down on .sigs, but orbiter is underexposed at all levels,
and I do believe it happens to be that killer space application everyone
was talking about a few years back, on the verge of going critical.

Of course, all that new space junk puts a damper on things, but you can
always throw in an overunity drive and get the hell out of dodge :-)

I was just coming in at an extremely low angle of attack, from a very
high elliptical orbit, and it threw be back into retrograde hyperbolic.

--
Get A Free Orbiter Space Flight Simulator :
http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/orbit.html

On 7 Feb, 07:30, "
wrote:
Mike Combs wrote:
I once wrote a short sf story where I recommended a series of
counter-orbiting foam spheres:

Deadly Debrishttp://members.aol.com/howiecombs/deaddebr.htm

I have no real idea whether such a thing would work in the real world or
not, though.

If the foam has the total cross-section of one square kilometer, it
would take a few thousand years to do the job.

How do you get this? The thing sweeps an orbit every 45 minutes, or
10,000 times per year. That would allow it to sweep a halo with a CSA
of 10,000km, say 100km by 10km.

This may not work for all space debris, but if there's a specific
problem orbit....