A growing problem for the various space agencies around the world is the ever increasing amount of 'space junk' in the form of long dead satellites and their components accumulating around our planet, and which remains in orbit long after they have reached the end of their working lives... as any debris will not oxidise, deteriorate and decompose in the vacuum of space.

And add to this the fact that they are each travelling around the earth at thousands of miles per hour, it is easy to see how even small fragments of paint can potentially blast a hole right through any space vehicles which may happen to venture into their orbital path on their way to the space station or perhaps beyond... not good when such holes could damage, if not destroy the vehicles themselves, the occupants and/or expensive and delicate payload, or at the very least create a fissure through which the oxygen for the crew can escape or the intense heat of re-entry into our atmosphere can bite and rend the ship apart.


So it is clear that finding a solution which will enable them to clear this debris and bring it back to earth safely is one of the major priorities for these agencies when considering the future of space flight and exploration...
...and to this end only a limited range of practical suggestions can be offered, many simply variations on a single theme, that of shooting down the larger satellites and junk with missiles.
The impracticalities of this are of course that in doing so you have to have a missile capable of being so precise as to be able to match the velocity and catch up with the small target debris moving at tremendous speed and striking it in such a way that does not simply scatter a cloud of smaller pieces over a wider area and making a bigger problem.
The other way of course is to steer a vehicle designed for this purpose to act in the capacity of the above mentioned missile, but instead of destroying the target, capturing it and stowing it away in a cargo hold and flown back down to earth... again, an expensive and perilous venture for which the potential risks far outweigh the benefits of the remote chance of success.


When in Doubt, Follow Nature.

A pattern of process that is uniformly present throughout the universe is that which created our solar system... the sun and it's own attendant satellites... the planets.

When this process began, the material from a collapsing star eventually exploded and cast this material outward from the centre as a great cloud of elementary debris, which, as the nascent star at it's centre grew and began to exert influence through it's greater mass and gravity on the surrounding material, began to rotate and draw the larger densities of gases and elements into clumps at varying distances from this star along those orbital paths where they were too far out to fall into the star, but not so far as to escape the gravitational pull of the newly born sun.
And as these clumps grew in size they began to attract more of the lower density material to themselves as they travelled, so increasing mass and attracting more mass and so on, until they were sufficiently large enough to have settled at positions which, if applied to satellites of earth, we would would call a geostationary orbit... and, crucially for my idea, mopped up all the material between them, leaving vast empty spaces amidst the planetary bodies.


Space Grenades!

And so it is that my idea is to suggest a line of enquiry to finding a solution to clearing this unwanted debris by using this process as an applied method of mopping up the rubbish found in space.
Remembering that objects orbiting the earth can only maintain their relative positions by travelling at a velocity sufficient to carry their particular mass along that path without this orbit deteriorating and causing them to fall back to earth, it is clear that we can either decrease the velocity, so that the earth's gravity can act on the satellite and pull it down, or, increase the mass of the object travelling at that velocity, essentially causing the same effect... whereby the mass is great enough for the gravity of the earth can over-match the velocity of the satellite.

In order to do this, I propose increasing the mass of the satellite by pouring more junk into it's path for it to mop up and accumulate, causing it to act as a larger singular mass.

This is done by identifying a particular object or satellite of interest, roughly matching it's velocity but at a safe distance, and releasing a canister of debris of sufficient mass to cause the effect in it's path, which then distributes or scatters that debris in an elongated cloud formation through which the satellite travels over several orbits, gathering the material as it goes... the canister itself falling back to earth perhaps to be reused at a latter date.

Ensuring that the debris does not linger itself, but rather comes back to earth with the satellite as one mass can be achieved by magnetising the debris like iron filings (the canister or 'grenade' constructed so as not to allow this debris to stick together in one lump before it accrues to the satellite), and allowing the material of which the satellite itself is constructed to attract this cloud of magnetic debris through the force of attraction in this way in place of gravity.

There are obvious potential drawbacks and pitfalls to this method such as the need to close off sections of space in which this cloud of debris scattered, until it has clumped around the satellite or fallen back to earth and cleared the area, and assessing how and where this satellite will fall on the earth upon it's eventual return, and the potential of magnetic debris being drawn instead to the earth's own magnetic forces in preference to the satellite (perhaps a viscous jelly or sticky substance could be used instead?), but I hear the chaps at NASA and other space agencies are pretty smart, and would perhaps relish the challenge of making something like this work...

...For all Mankind.

Ideia editada em 21/12/2011 11:28