From a distance the world looks... surrounded by a huge cloud of trash

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Thank you, and I agree with that.

No, I haven't seen it.

Maybe it should be on my "to watch" list?

BT

a reply to: BuzzyWigs
When I was a child, I read a book with a story that took place in the future, can't remember the name. I was put off by the descriptions of the future in the book, but the one thing that stood out was the unavailability of drinking water. In the book, people had to pay large sums of money to obtain drinking water. I remember telling my mother how unbelievable the story was because water was free and it was all around us, even if sometimes we had to dig for it.

We use to think that water would last forever, and we would never run out of oil; they say hindsight is 20/20.

For interested parties there is a forcast for falling junk, with reentry times.

You can find it here courtesy of satview.org, complete with a schedule and tracking of falling debris.

Pretty neat, in a crummy kind of way.

BT

originally posted by: beetee
a reply to: intrptr

There is no intelligent life down here.

Haha, that's why we are seeking for extraterrestial intelligence, I guess :-)

BT

Most of the 'space junk' is there to control all the people down here.

originally posted by: TEOTWAWKIAIFF
a reply to: beetee

Space Roomba.

It flies around by itself to pre-targeted positions and either latches onto to the debris or "spits it out" towards earth. Then at the end of its life, crashes to earth.

We can record it doing its job and sell u-tube views to finance the whole thing.

I'm being mostly serious too. Not facetious; I want this idea to work. We need to better stewards of land, sea, and space.

They are working on it. The biggest problem is how to actually attach to the debris. Lots of it is 'complex', in that it has booms, solar cells, antennas, etc. They are struggling to design a 'claw', arrow with tether, lasso, net, whatever, that won't break off bits of satellite during the capture process. This only creates more debris orbiting the earth, instead of one piece they make five, see? The biggest threat from that being that new spinoffs might collide with other objects over time resulting in more collisions, more debris than we have now.

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

I was thinking close to what you where thinking, but my mind went to how much graveyard metal does it take before it starts to interfere with the magnetosphere, or with reflections of the sun.

I have pondered that as well.

If the massive amout of space junk IS interfering in the Earth's magnetic field and contributing to so called climate change.

But they won't even explore the idea.

originally posted by: beetee
a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Thank you, and I agree with that.

No, I haven't seen it.

Maybe it should be on my "to watch" list?

BT

Absolutely, but be advised it is a satirical look at just how awful things could be. It's a certain kind of humor that not everyone appreciates. Takes place 500 years in the future after society has been so dumbed down that it no longer can function effectively. Including taking care of the garbage.



Garbage Avalanche Scene

a reply to: beetee

The issue is being attended to, however the latest try was a failure: www.popularmechanics.com... s/news/a25066/japan-space-junk-experiment-failure/

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Brilliant.

I have to watch that.

BT

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

There are green burial methods being employed now. One guy I knew was a grave-digger. He told me about how they embalm bodies, and how the whole thing works. I went on to research it in depth. In grad school I did a thesis on the industry. It's incredibly SciFi. And gross. Especially the way organ donors' bodies are 'prepared' for burial. ugh.

look at the bright side, when we get enough space trash up there the aliens won`t be able to get through without hitting space trash and crashing their flying saucers, who needs SDI when we have space trash to keep us safe.

originally posted by: Tardacus
look at the bright side, when we get enough space trash up there the aliens won`t be able to get through without hitting space trash and crashing their flying saucers, who needs SDI when we have space trash to keep us safe.

Plus, space trash can reflect more sunlight towards Earth, making for longer days and brighter nights.

A ground-based high-energy laser with a large, adaptive-optics-equipped mirror could vaporize anything large enough to cause damage at orbital speeds. The resulting microscopic debris could get blown away from the Earth by the photon pressure of the laser.

I think Arthur Clarke mentioned something like this ~40 years ago in "The Fountains of Paradise", but that was using orbital lasers. Keeping it on the ground would eliminate size, mass and power constraints.