Junk is accumulating in space at a fantastic pace, millions of pieces orbit the Earth, from broken satellites to lost screws and tiny hunks of splintered paint. The International Space Station has to dodge it. Sometimes, space junk crashes into other space junk, creating more space junk. And while there have been many proposals for technologies to capture and destroy it, thereâs not been a system-level plan for dealing with it in a comprehensive way.
This week, researchers at Englandâs University of Surrey published a paper outlining how to better deal with our celestial litter. The basic idea: make space more sustainable by using less material, repairing whatâs already up there, and recycling the junk we canât repair â and doing it systemically, industry-wide.
While this sounds pretty basic to Earth-dwellers already long-familiar with reduce, re-use, recycle, it really is a âfairly newâ concept for the space industry, said Michael Dodge, a professor of space studies at the University of North Dakota, who was not involved in the study. âIâve never seen it presented this way,â he said. âItâs an area that needs to be discussed further.â