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Unfortunately it's not that simple. Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way do

Unfortunately it's not that simple. Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. And the valuable space in orbit is no exception. Take the entire surface area of the Earth, and then extrude it up into a volume roughly 800km high. That's the volume you need to clear (and that's just Low Earth Orbit). There is no magnet powerful enough to make even a dent.

Taylor_OD 5y ago
Yup. This is one of those issues where in most folks heads near by space/orbit is small in comparison to the vastness of space and the universe. Which it is. However its still incredibly massive and difficult to comprehend just how big it is.
short_sells_poo 5y ago
I wholly agree with the spirit of your post, but I thought LEO is not that problematic because there is still atmospheric drag there that will bring down rubbish in the matter of years.
- SonicScrub 5y ago
  Well the clean-up problem get's even more complicated with MEO and beyond as the amount of space becomes even larger. As for space-junk not being a problem in LEO, you are correct that space junk in LEO will de-orbit in a somewhat reasonable time-frame (on the order of a few years), but that's still problematic. It would still cause the destruction of 100s of billions of dollars worth of equipment, the ceasing of any operations dependent on LEO satellite equipment, and either increasing the risk or out-right blocking launches through LEO for a number of years. The fact that this would be temporary does not mean it isn't very bad.
gentleman11 5y ago
What if it was a billion smaller magnets? Over time they would clump up with other debris and other clumps, and the mass would make the orbits decay faster. This is my very uninformed idea, maybe magnets just have such short range that it’s not feasible at all
- SonicScrub 5y ago
  If you put a billion magnets in space haven't you just increased the space-junk problem by multiple orders of magnitude? Also, heavier objects decay slower than light ones. Atmospheric drag is the driver of orbital decay. If you increase an object's mass, you lower the de-acceleration provided by atmospheric drag. Drag force scales with surface area, which increases as the square of size, whereas mass increases with the cube. Therefore, increase the size, and mass increases at a faster rate than drag force. Therefore in general larger objects decay slower than small ones

Taylor_OD 5y ago

Yup. This is one of those issues where in most folks heads near by space/orbit is small in comparison to the vastness of space and the universe. Which it is. However its still incredibly massive and difficult to comprehend just how big it is.

short_sells_poo 5y ago

I wholly agree with the spirit of your post, but I thought LEO is not that problematic because there is still atmospheric drag there that will bring down rubbish in the matter of years.

SonicScrub 5y ago
Well the clean-up problem get's even more complicated with MEO and beyond as the amount of space becomes even larger. As for space-junk not being a problem in LEO, you are correct that space junk in LEO will de-orbit in a somewhat reasonable time-frame (on the order of a few years), but that's still problematic. It would still cause the destruction of 100s of billions of dollars worth of equipment, the ceasing of any operations dependent on LEO satellite equipment, and either increasing the risk or out-right blocking launches through LEO for a number of years. The fact that this would be temporary does not mean it isn't very bad.

gentleman11 5y ago

What if it was a billion smaller magnets? Over time they would clump up with other debris and other clumps, and the mass would make the orbits decay faster. This is my very uninformed idea, maybe magnets just have such short range that it’s not feasible at all

SonicScrub 5y ago
If you put a billion magnets in space haven't you just increased the space-junk problem by multiple orders of magnitude? Also, heavier objects decay slower than light ones. Atmospheric drag is the driver of orbital decay. If you increase an object's mass, you lower the de-acceleration provided by atmospheric drag. Drag force scales with surface area, which increases as the square of size, whereas mass increases with the cube. Therefore, increase the size, and mass increases at a faster rate than drag force. Therefore in general larger objects decay slower than small ones