3 ms·
I want to know the collective mass of this 'space junk'. It is indeed unusable now, but it is a lot of highly refined matter that is already high in the earth'
by toss1 6y ago
I want to know the collective mass of this 'space junk'.
It is indeed unusable now, but it is a lot of highly refined matter that is already high in the earth's gravity well.
The question is whether whether enough of it exists that it could become useful, or even profitable, to reuse/recycle it.
Once you've gotten a herding satellite to rendezvous and dock/grab the junk, how much extra energy is needed to park it in a useful common orbital location for later reuse/recycling, vs making it new on the ground and lifting it out of the gravity well again?
Seems it could be a profitably exploitable resource, if the scale is right?
- qayxc 6y agoIt's not much and it's definitely not profitable. The vast majority of space junk (by number) is small pieces of metal, bolts, specks of paint, that sort of thing. The few bigger things are rocket stages, decommissioned satellites, and larger collision fragments. The problem is that the most dangerous debris (e.g. debris that doesn't deorbit on its own anytime soon) orbits between 2000km and GEO at varying inclinations. These orbits are difficult to get to and the debris is worth nothing compared to the energy you'd have to spend to catch it. The value of the debris itself is comparable to the value of junk here on Earth. Unless space faring nations are paying for removal, I cannot see any scenario in which the ~8,000 metric tons of space debris [0] can be collected and recycled at a profit. It's just too difficult and costly to do. [0] https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/National-Orbital-Debris-RD-Plan-2021.pdf https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021...