Idina Menzel will clean up space junk??

[Quackers101]

Clean space by shoot up more junk, oh it worked?

[Bombastinator]

What concerns me here is the tech involved in the actual connection here hasn’t changed a whole lot since the 60’s and back then nasa had the same thought, changed their minds because they thought it would fail, went to something different, and failed anyway. If this works it will mean that nasa, which was made up of a whole lot of the smartest people we had, went up a blind alley after making a wrong decision.  I’m just not confident.  Might have to be tried anyway.  I don’t know.

[CarlBar]

8 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

What concerns me here is the tech involved in the actual connection here hasn’t changed a whole lot since the 60’s and back then nasa had the same thought, changed their minds because they thought it would fail, went to something different, and failed anyway. If this works it will mean that nasa, which was made up of a whole lot of the smartest people we had, went up a blind alley after making a wrong decision.  I’m just not confident.  Might have to be tried anyway.  I don’t know.

 

They're good, but that doesn't make them infallible.

 

I'd also argue that the construction of satellites going up now is significantly different than then. A lot of things have gotten a lot smaller, lighter, and more compact. Thats going to have implications that are probably relevant here.

[Bombastinator]

31 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

 

They're good, but that doesn't make them infallible.

 

I'd also argue that the construction of satellites going up now is significantly different than then. A lot of things have gotten a lot smaller, lighter, and more compact. Thats going to have implications that are probably relevant here.

True.  For what it’s worth I really do hope it works.  I’m just not sure it will.   Smaller and lighter will mean less fuel for faster movement.  If they can connect it will help a lot.  Connection has always been the bugbear though.  Could fix that for future stuff.  Make it easy.  The problem is the old stuff has already clogged everything.  If a given satellite has any ferrous metal at all it could eventually be drawn in by a magnet.  The problem is time.  Permanent magnets that could sit there for months exerting tiny fractions of a gee are really heavy and they can’t be turned off. Electromagnets eat fuel to run for long periods of time.   I guess we can only hope that something really clever is thought of.  A satellite that takes six months to grab one piece of space junk and dispose of it could have its points. Every little bit helps.