Oct 29, 2012

Bye Bye Space Junk?


This picture always amazes me, and I am very pleased to hear that there is an effort to try and address this issue.  Kudos Boeing!





To clear space junk without creating more in the process, Boeing wants to slow pieces of orbiting degree by intercepting them with a cloud of dense gas.

Aerospace giant Boeing has developed a novel means of clearing space junk from low Earth orbit: A cloud of ballistic gas. Most space junk-clearing schemes involve launching something up there to physically de-orbit debris, but this means launching rocket stages into orbit that then become more orbital debris. Boeing’s solution: Launch a rocket full of cryogenic inert gas right to the very edge of space, then forcibly eject tons of vaporized gas further upward into an orbiting debris cluster. The initial density of the cloud will create enough drag to slow the debris just enough to de-orbit it, and the launch rocket would remain low enough to fall harmlessly back to Earth.

5 comments:

  1. WOW I have never seen this photo! cannot imagine that much debris.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Devo sang it... like Jack69, I could not imagine it... Space Junk..!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love the image but am terrified of the solution. It sounds like a plot from an apocalypse movie where the "simple" solution destroyed the atmosphere. Just kidding, but it is a thought.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I didn't know there was that much junk up there!

    ReplyDelete

Tell Me What You Think, Don't Make me go Rogue on you :o)