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

ESA recently held the 7th European conference on space debris in Darmstadt, Germany.
The conference discussed topics such as debris avoidance and possible strategies for removal.

There are now more than 18000 pieces of space junk in orbit, being tracked from the ground, and an estimated 750 000 smaller objects abot the size of an Euro. On top of that there are millions of smaller objects.

Here is a nice video on the ESA YouTube channel outlining the problem and its possible ramifications.



It is a somewhat sad thing that we have not only filled our oceans with plastic, but are now busy littering space as well.

ESA has been concentrating on this issue for a while now, and have been collecting statistics which it publishes. These are the most current, as of January 2017:

Number of rocket launches since the start of the space age in 1957: About 5250

Number of satellites these rocket launches have placed into Earth orbit: About 7500

Number of these still in space: About 4300

Number of these still functioning: About 1200

Number of debris objects regularly tracked by the US Space Surveillance Network and maintained in their catalogue: About 23 000

Estimated number of break-ups, explosions and collision events resulting in fragmentation: More than 290

Total mass of all space objects in Earth orbit: About 7500 tonnes

Number of debris objects estimated by statistical models to be in orbit:

29 000 objects >10 cm
750 000 objects from 1 cm to 10 cm
166 million objects from 1 mm to 1 cm

It is, of course, one thing to read the numbers, but I must say the video brought out the enormity of it, at least for me.

Maybe what Mr Musk and company should be designing next is a giant space garbage truck, so that the civiians going around the moon can get through the trash-cloud without having an unfortunate collision !

Source: ESA

BT

I wonder if they saw the film, Gravity. Tell them to skip ahead to two minutes in here:

There is no intelligent life down here.

I think cleaning the space debris and earth debris is very imperative. I see a lot of money to be made by the intelligent, creative, and determined minds out there in this field.

I had never heard of EESA before.

-Alee

originally posted by: NerdGoddess
I think cleaning the space debris and earth debris is very imperative. I see a lot of money to be made by the intelligent, creative, and determined minds out there in this field.

I had never heard of EESA before.

-Alee

My thoughts too. Space Waste Management will be a big industry. Spaste Management?

a reply to: beetee

Maybe what Mr Musk and company should be designing next is a giant space garbage truck, so that the civiians going around the moon can get through the trash-cloud without having an unfortunate collision !

The fuel required to shift orbit and match intrinsics wth other objects is enormous. Not that I don't think the shuttle cargo bay ever returned empty.

Today they are throwing more micro sats up than ever, in clusters...

Space.com

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.

Half of it in LEO. Brave people in the ISS.......

You'd think their footage would be full of space debris whizzing by judging by this vid.

a reply to: AstralAvenger

As much trash is in orbit, there is a lot more empty space there than not.

Didn't really think of all the space crap we've dumped before, looks like everything we do is litter both earth and space..Send that garbage shuttle now.

Seen things like this in the summer time, when dogs leave presents and the flies have a good time.
We really need to clean up after ourselves..

a reply to: NerdGoddess

I had never heard of EESA before.

ESA is the European Space Agency, as you might have guessed, and exists somewhat jealously in the shadow of NASA and others. I guess lacking the economical muscle to do spectacular things they can concetrate on the less spectacular, such as - well space junk :-)

I think you are quite right we need to be getting on with cleaning up both our planet and our orbits, or we will find ourself on an uninhabitable world confined by our own out of control junk cloud.

That would be the ultimate irony, perhaps :-)

BT

We should work on developing a space worthy grocery
cart. There are people willing to recover what is likely
very recyclable remnants if they could only get there.

a reply to: Phage

Yeah I know, "big sky, little 6 million bullets".

That's not the point is it, that there is more empty space than bullets when they are flying all around you.

a reply to: intrptr

There is no intelligent life down here.

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

BT

From a distance the world looks... surrounded by a huge cloud of trash page: 1

Show me a pic of this.

a reply to: AstralAvenger

Here you go...



BT

a reply to: AstralAvenger

On a more serious note, although it is not visible from, say the moon, it is still a serious problem.

Not only is it wasteful, with a lot of rare materials being left to either burn up in the atmosphere or sit in orbit for ages, but it is a avoidable complication to space operations.

And, as the video mentions, it is pretty unpredictable if things start to collide up there, with new vectors being created on each impact.

BT

a reply to: beetee

Yeah I know, you meant it more or less sarcastic because of the impression the video gave you and subconsciously you knew it was BS.

originally posted by: beetee
Maybe what Mr Musk and company should be designing next is a giant space garbage truck, so that the civiians going around the moon can get through the trash-cloud without having an unfortunate collision !

I can see it now, poor folks floating around the planet, in orange space suits, with sticks with a nail on the end, and an orange Hefty bag, working off fines... *__-

a reply to: AstralAvenger

Yes, and it was an attempt to allude to a certain song by Bette Midler with which some, might be familiar :-)

Not really a fan, but here you go :



BT