Space Junk - recycling

There seems to be a lot of junk orbiting the planet, from parts of the Apollo rockets, through dead satellites, to wrecked UFO pieces (kidding). How much of the material up there is actually worth salvaging? How many tons of valuable resources are up there that are worth developing some sort of recycling craft and mechanism to go up there and get the stuff back to earth?

I know some of the wreckage poses a threat to other spacecraft, is that problem great enough to make it worthwhile to develop a space lane sweeper? On a more sinister note could the material be compacted then used as a kinetic weapon from some sort of linear accelerator? Or could you point the railgun the other way and shoot large amounts of mass to crash into the moon to be used to get resources there on the cheap?

reply to post by Rob37n
There is plenty of junk to recycle down here,we should probably start with that.

Most of the junk in orbit will come back down on it's own.

Now to just stop shooting more up there,and maybe put the resources to better use down here.

reply to post by Rob37n


Some good suggestions there on weaponizing the junk or sending it away.
How about constructive recycling? Put a solar-powered foundry in orbit to creep up on the junk and reduce it to molten metal and refashion into other devices? Supposedly, the vacuum of space is a good place to produce pure metal products. And certainly, there is plenty of exotic metals up there, that stuff isn't typical scrap iron, you know.

reply to post by Aliensun


Sorry about that, I was hoping people might come up with better ideas, I figured I'd put out the best and worst of ideas hoping to stimulate some discussion and some much more productive ideas.

I wonder if you could put your idea for a solar furnace a safe but close distance from the ISS to allow them to work it with a series of small remotely operated vehicles? The material could be ferried back to earth, or even given a heat shield ala the space shuttle tiles and allowed to free fall in the US desert somewhere as a big lump of processed metals.

It's just another example of how humans put trash everywhere. Those Hoarder shows on cable are difficult to watch. I am sure there is alot of Gold and Copper wiring in the circuits of those discarded space machinery. I propose they send it to the moon and utilize it to start a colony of humans to build protection weapons for the Earth from asteriods and metorites.
I recycle a few bags of stuff every week. I a tired of that job, but I realize it is crucial to our environment. It should
be a crime to put recyclables in the landfill to be covered up by dirt. It drives me nuts to see the recyclables people don't recycle in the dumpsters... This needs to be a society issue. Everyone is reponsible. I love how Ireland's people can recycle at the gas stations, and donate clothes to charity there! Brilliant!

The problem is how do you get up there to clean out over 15,000 pieces of space junk without creating more space junk? Every time you launch a cleanup crew into space, you are adding to the debris field. Every time you bring any sort of recycling container into space, you are adding to the debris field.

And then there is the problem with radioactive material. A lot of the debris comes from abandoned satellites which were powered by radio isotopes of Uranium and Plutonium. A lot of those radio isotopes and fuel canisters are still up there floating around the Earth and waiting to burn up in the atmosphere.