It seems to me the easiest way to deal with space junk is to send up a device that is solar powered that has enough weight so it could "Throw down towards earth" space junk one piece at a time. Because all you have to do is to get it moving towards earth's atmosphere so it can burn up in the atmosphere. For most devices not being used out there it wouldn't take much to move them towards burning up in the atmosphere eventually.
Also, if there are nuclear powered or other toxic devices that might be a problem maybe they could be thrown out of the orbit of the earth and out into space so they don't bring radiation to earth.
It makes perfect sense to me that drone technology that makes flying drones on earth work autonomously could also be used in space to get rid of defunct or obsolete space junk one by one, so they could be thrown towards earth's atmosphere or out into space depending upon whether they would be dangerous or not to people. But, most devices are just going to burn up coming into Earth's atmosphere.
Once a space drone was programmed to do this one by one, no humans likely would be necessary except to make sure it wasn't throwing back to earth a device still in use by a country here on earth.
The U.S. could lead in this by creating a drone to get rid of all U.S. made technology now defunct or obsolete in space in orbit around earth.
No comments:
Post a Comment