A tremendous amount of debris from abandoned or malfunctioning artificial satellites are orbiting the Earth. They pose a great threat to astronauts and are also harmful to spacecraft and communication satellites. Suppose you are in charge of removing this debris. What is your idea/method to do so? (Example) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris#/media/File:Debris-GEO1280.jpg
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Daniel:
I like i’d say most of the the others in the class never really considered the amount of “space junk” there was floating around up there. We as humans tend to junk up every enviroment we come in contact with, almost like we can’t help ourselves. Rant over. Now, my idea is a little “science fictiony”. I would propose using two “controllable” satillites, sort of like UAVs with a net type structure between them used to catch one or more smaller pieces of space junk. Once ensnared in the net, if the debris is small enough the UAVs could be directed back toward the earths atmosphere and with no heat shielding, the debis along with the UAVs should mostly vaporize in the heat of re-entry. If the pieces are too large using Newtons laws of motion direct the UAVs on a course with the Sun, while it may take a while and barring any object acting upon that course it too should vaporize in the heat. This would by NO means be a practical way to carry out this task, but I’m not sure if there is a practical way to do it.
