Let's Go Grab An Asteroid Meetings

1. How about NASA coming up with some plans to go grab some Low earth Orbit garbage? This is a problem that concerns all users of space and will have to be addressed sooner or later.

   1. I agree that this is one of the issues that’s long overdue for attention. It seems to me that there’s too much concentration on the inspiration and destiny stuff, and almost none on the housekeeping and maintenance duties. It’s almost like a kid painting a fence; he wants to wield the paint brush but has no interest in preparing the surface first or cleaning up afterward.

      I think orbital clean-up breaks up into separate processes that can largely be developed separately and then put together, and attacking the R&D in those separate pieces may be the only way to get either funding or interest. We have:

      – getting to orbit
      – moving around in orbit (safely amongst all the junk)
      – identifying what’s junk and what’s good stuff to leave alone
      – attracting/collecting the junk
      – containing the junk while moving it to the removal point
      – handling multiple items at once, not one trip per item
      – safely maintaining a collection point for removal
      – method(s) of removal (burn in atmosphere, fire into Sun, recycle materials on orbit, etc.)

      This is the simple approach. What we could also logically add into it is identifying items for repair or recovery of components and delivering them to where they can be dealt with. This requires a whole separate cost/benefit analysis to determine what the “rules” for it will be and how/where to effectively do the work after “collection.”

      One major difference from the norm in the concept and design of this will be having a space “garbage truck” that stays in space. There is no reason at all for it to return to Earth. This means that refueling and any maintenance will have to be done in space, which are two capabilities that we need to be developing anyhow for many different purposes.

      So, this would not only be a responsible and socially mature program to undertake, it has the added advantage of developing certain multi-purpose elements of space infrastructure that would be of use to several on-going, proposed, and future programs.

      1. I think a lot could be learned from designing and implementing all of these various solutions. The knowledge and experience gained could very well have practical benefits when we eventually do get to the inspiration and destiny projects. After fifty years of spaceflight I think we are still in the infancy stages of knowing how to maneuver, grapple and manipulate objects in space, something which I think we are going to need to do a lot more of in the future.

         It might be a hard sell to convince people that trash collection in LEO could be one of the stepping stones to venturing out into the Solar System but I think it very well could be.

      2. Recycle is big one to me. Isn’t that the beginning of industry in space?????

         1. I think it could/should be. I’m surprised that the Moon first people don’t seem to have picked up on it as an argument in their favor.

            A dumping site (crashing site?) on the lunar surface with a recovery, processing, smelting site nearby (but not too nearby) makes sense to me. Telepresesence, from both elsewhere on the Moon and from Earth could be employed for some of the work.

            Do the dumping, collection, sorting, etc. during lunar night, and the cracking, smelting, pouring, etc. during the day using solar furnaces. You’d need “dump trucks” and “delivery trucks” which could be maintained at the lunar base (near the launching/landing site) and even outfitted to an extent from the recycling process.

            All of the interactivity between processes would be both cost reducing and good practice for scheduling the more complex lunar base activities.

            And this “industry” should in theory never go out of business, only expand — quite possibly extraction and processing of water and natural resources are functions that could logically be performed by expansion of the “garbage” facility. It all makes sense to me and shows a responsible attitude.

      3. method(s) of removal (burn in atmosphere, fire into Sun, recycle materials on orbit, etc.)

         I assume you were being flippant, but I think it’s worth challenging this whenever it comes up: “Firing into the sun” is not a thing. To hit the sun, you need to virtually zero your orbital velocity. Ie, 30km/s delta-v, (that’s after leaving Earth orbit). That’s about twice what you need to eject something from the solar system altogether.

         Even crashing it on the moon would be beyond any delta-v budget of an orbital debris system. Your choices are parking-orbit/recycle or burn up in the atmosphere.

         1. Paul,

            You’re right, of course. I threw it in because I figured it was inevitable that someone would suggest it, since it was done in several SF stories over the years. At a time when we’re doing some serious solar monitoring missions, I don’t advocate tossing anything into the Sun, even if it was cheap and easy to do so. I’m very much in the recycle and reuse camp myself, and I’d lke to see aluminum used in space wherever possible since it can be recycled almost endlessly.

            I once saw a proposal for dumping the trash into the asteroid belt or putting it into a long-term, out of plane eliptical orbit, on the theory these were lower-energy options than the Sun. Even if that were true, I’d hate to see either one done since we’d only get much of it back again eventually, much dispersed.

            I think the extra enery required to dump it on the Moon is justified for the purpose of recycling the materials, or even components. One or more methods may be needed to decelerate loads so as not to destroy the materials (catchers have been designed). A recycling facility on the Moon would be an investment, and it would be a factor in where you’d locate your lunar rail gun. I envision a contiuous “conveyor system” (of some sort) to and from the lunar surface once a base and/or any industry exists, so why not make it the garbage chute/recycling bin as well?

            1. I’m not sure you realise how much energy is required to get to the moon. Many satellites reach their end-of-life merely because they run out of propellant for station-keeping. If you have enough fuel to send them out to the moon (even just to impact) you’d have enough fuel for decades of station-keeping.

               Which is the first target for “recycling”, IMO. Refuelling satellites would increase their life-span, saving the owners money. (Which is why the satellite manufacturers so strongly oppose the idea.)

            2. Hi Paul,

               I think we’re on the same page with this, but thinking of different situations. Anything that is still functional, or can reasonably be made so, should be “fixed,” whether that means refueling or whatever. What I’m thinking of is the stuff that can’t be repaired and all of the outright junk. In SpaceTech’s original comment he said, “Low earth Orbit garbage,” so I assumed we were all talking about the junk.

               There’s no question that significant energy will be required to collect and move the junk to wherever it’s going to go, but that price has to be paid. Garbage and recycling pickup at our homes isn’t free, and neither is processing it, so it’s reasonable to assume it’ll cost significant money that much farther away.

               I think space “garbage removal” should be considered a cost of doing business and therefore every launch/mission that leaves things floating around in space should be surcharged accordingly. It would be easier to implement that idea if we had an international space authority and if we had an actual space garbage system, but in an ideal world we would be charging now and putting that money into developing a garbage system.

               It’s just one of the many things that all space countries know should be taken care of, but no one is making the first move past talking about it. If aliens ever do come knocking, our space garbage is one of the first things they’re going to see. Not a great first impression.

      4. space quest 5. 🙂

   2. NASA has vetted such ideas within recent time and I only conclude that they subconsciously believe it’s a problem for the youth of this country, on top of the deficit of course.

2. Has anybody found the registration site/place for this meeting?? That is,
   the Call for Ideas Meeting?

3. Forget previous comments, the registration site for Call for Ideas is now up.

4. Google ESA’s Clean Space initiative

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