Timothy Birdnow

Here's an interesting story; NASA wants to deploy a big net to catch space debris which imperils the Space Station and our activities in orbit.

Yes, they are going fishing - for space junk!

From the article: This is not sci-fi. We repeat, not sci-fi,” read a tweet from NanoRacks, a Texas-based company that helped develop the net deployer.

The incredible new project works by using 3D mapping and, yes, an actual harpoon to target space debris and capture it. For this test, the team sent out their own bit of debris, which ironically ended up moving faster than expected but also therefore showed how effective the process can be.

But what’s the point of ensnaring space junk if there’s no way to bring it back in?

Well, the test showed that the ensnared debris, along with the net itself, will eventually fall into the Earth’s atmosphere where it will burn up before it can do any damage to those in space, or back down on Earth below."

End excerpt.

The article mentions the scientifically inaccurate movie Gravity, which is a shame, although they understandably use it to illustrate the danger of space debris. In Gravity, a satellite killer leads to major debris imperiling the International Space Station and the hero and heroine. While that is correct it over-did things; that debris would scatter, moving into different orbits. The movie suggested it would remain as a reasonably compact mass moving at ferocious speed. It also failed to understand that the station and the main characters would be in about the same orbit so they wouldn't be  torn apart by this debris so much; they would be moving at roughly the same speed. It's what you call literary license.

But that's not to say there isn't great danger in space debris - especially when you are moving relative to the junk - as in when you are coming and going from Earth. Clearly, something must be done at some point. Purposely making their orbits decay is the logical way to go. Most of this stuff isn't worth salvaging, although some of it may be.

(And while I enjoyed Gravity I just had a hard time suspending my disbelief; there was no way the main character could possibly have landed that Chinese Soyuz without a computer to calculate the exact course window. Can't be done. She would either have burned up or skipped off the atmosphere. The vehicle would not be able to simply calculate a course and lay it in without her. And she didn't speak or read Chinese, that was made clear. But it was a fun movie nonetheless)

Most space junk is just that, not worth salvaging. But it is possible to get the booster rocket stages that are still orbiting and perhaps use them for construction material for space stations. Those things can be cleaned out inside and pressurized; they make dandy habitats.

Any way you slice it, there is something poetic about casting a net to fish for space junk.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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