For a bunch of supposed scientists, these tits seem to be remarkably unworldly [sic]:
Earth’s orbit is filling up with junk. Greenhouse gases are making the problem worse.
By the end of the century, a shrinking atmosphere could create a minefield for satellites.
I’m going to ignore the “greenhouse gases” bit because I have an abiding suspicion of headlines which require that we stop buying SUVs and generating electricity.
I’ll buy the first part, though, because that’s actual scientific observation.
Now I’m not a scientist, make no claims to be one, and I’m certainly no astrophysicist. But I am a capitalist, and it seems to me that the solution is not to turn off all lightbulbs on Earth, but to let the market take care of the junk problem, by simply collecting it and disposing of it as we do with all our other household junk.
Here’s my suggestion: have ol’ Elon Musk design a giant Shop-Vac that can be mounted on one of his rockets, and launch it into space to collect debris. Then, when the receptacle is full, launch the craft into the general direction of the Sun for eventual incineration. This action could be repeated with more Junk-X spacecraft until our atmosphere is neat and tidy again.
Now this job and technology wouldn’t be cheap, and SpaceX would need to be paid (because Elon may sometimes be a philanthropist, but he’s not a complete sucker either). But paid by whom?
Well, considering that this would benefit mankind in general, it should not be funded by any single country — yeah, ten guesses which country would be expected to fund it — but by all nations on Earth.
Is there a global organization which should sponsor SpaceX to complete this function? Uh, lemme think… oh yeah, how about this lot?
You might think that the U.N. doesn’t have the funds to pay SpaceX, but I’ll be that if their budget was scrutinized, there’d be a whole bunch of inefficiencies and waste which could be re-purposed towards so noble an objective.
And in a Great Circle Of Life manifestation, I bet that Elon’s DOGE whizzkids could find the dollars in about a couple of days, if they could be let loose on the United Nations’ budget…
sounds like a good idea. Why don’t they make provisions to bring that trash back to earth? Put a 500lb satellite into orbit, bring 500lbs back.
Those provisions are already in place. It works about as well as laws against littering.
Wrong way, don’t send it into the sun, or back to earth, tell Elon he can send it all to Mars for his planned colonies. After all, once it in orbit, it’s halfway to anywhere.
Getting into orbit is easy compared to escaping the Earth’s gravity which is extremely difficult. Getting to the Sun is extraordinarily difficult, much more so than visiting Mars.
It’s a lot cheaper, in terms of energy required, to send stuff out of the solar system than it is to “drop” it into the sun. Counter-intuitive but true.
Yep, orbital mechanics are counterintuitive. To orbit faster, you decelerate. . .
I looked up the numbers semi-recently and IIRC, the sun’s escape velocity is ~45 km/s. The earth is orbiting at ~32 km/s, so to escape the solar system the delta v needed is only 13 km/s, but to drop into the sun would be that whole 32 km/s, so more than double the energy expended to do that.
Another oddity is that depite what drawing look like, Earth is closer to Mercury than to Venus more of the time. And so is Mars. And Jupiter. And Saturn and Uranus too. Yep…. all planets are “mostest closest” to Mercury.
Also, the subtitle about the “shrinking atmosphere” is the first clue that the article was written by idiots. The Global Warming people say that the atmosphere is heating up and the Ideal Gas Law shows that as temperature goes up so does the volume. So a warmer atmosphere means it is expanding, not shrinking.
Unfortunately Popular Science has accepted the “Global Climate Change” pseudo science/religion as a real thing. I’m rather skeptical of the whole “expanding lower atmosphere/shrinking ypper atmosphere argument there. Show me tha data, charts, graphs, etc. Don’t just quote “experts” And where’s the money coming from for the non-profit Aerospace Company (an NGO that’s just taken a DOGE hit?)?
We may have to do some treaty alterations to get all the debris gone. The countries that put the stuff up there are the owners and are responsible for the stuff. And if you can de-orbit another country’s dead sat, you can de-orbit a working one, so don’t go after anything Russian or Chinese without permission!
The UN(?!?) fund anyhting actually useful?!?? Ya, let’s do a DOGE job on the UN and see where the money goes. I’m already gorging on popcorn!
And yeah, it’s really difficult to send stuff sunward, better just de-orbit the stuff and let it burn up in the atmosphere. Recycling!
Assigning Elon’s lot the job of designing, building, and operating the LEO Shop-Vac isn’t very capitalist. The honest thing would be to put it out for bids at the UN but, since we’re the major funder of the UN, be sure Trump’s lawyers get to write the contract penalty clause. The corrupt UN will assume the customary rules apply and award the contract to something like the Ugandan Space Agency with customary kickbacks expected. That’s when the penalty clause becomes important because it will specify that Elon’s now experienced forensic accounts will get the job of tracking down the crooks and will specify what happens to them.
This arrangement will get two results:
1. Total failure to satisfy the contract penalty clause will result in jail time in El Salvador or northern Greenland for all involved at decision making level, and
2. Calling for bids again will get the job for SpaceX because even the incompetents will have seen the result of point #1 above and will get it right this time , probably in the second Vance administration when the Mars colony can use the raw material.
I think there are some Federal judges who should go along for the ride…
90% of the space junk does come from NASA and from a country that no longer exists. Maybe the US should start the cleanup. Sorry but fair is fair.