[Ground-station] Debris Mitigation - call for comments

[Jeff WE4B]

I wonder how well the laser ‘pulverized’ these objects in orbit. It’s a very interesting solution. Something will have to be done soon to mitigate all of the objects that we have inserted into orbit. If I had venture capital money, I would partner with Bob McGwier and try to figure out a solution.  

Jeff WE4B

> On Sep 23, 2020, at 1:52 PM, KENT BRITAIN via Ground-Station <ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
> 
> 
> The Australians have a plan using a very very high power earth based LASER.
> 
> The object is noted.  The LASER at a lower power setting is used to illuminate and 
> confirm it is the correct object.   Power is increased.  Object is no longer a solid object.
> 
> Most of the ions are now captured by the earths magnetic field and become
> part of the next Aurora show.
> 
> Kent WA5VJB
> 
> On Wednesday, September 23, 2020, 1:47:10 PM CDT, Phil Karn via Ground-Station <ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
> 
> 
> I am very seriously concerned about space debris. I just don't see any
> easy ways to clean it up. It **might** be practical to demo a robotic
> mission to de-orbit some of the larger intact satellites that represent
> large chunks of the total mass in LEO, but there's nothing to do about
> the zillions of tiny bits with 100x the specific energy of a rifle bullet.
> 
> For amateur satellites and cubesats in general I think the only
> practical option is to keep them in low, short-lived orbits that will
> clean themselves out over time.
> 
> I'm very seriously concerned about the part of Musk's huge constellation
> in relatively high and long-lived LEO orbits. While all their satellites
> are currently in 550 km orbits that aren't terribly long-lived, their
> plans change constantly and they've already had approvals to put
> thousands of satellites in long lived orbits up around 1,000 km. Each
> spacecraft is 260 kg, and 1,440 satellites @ 260 kg each is 374 tonnes.
> By comparison, the ISS is 420 tonnes in a much shorter-lived orbit (if
> it were to fail or be abandoned).
> 
> Despite his best efforts I expect some of his satellites *will* fail to
> deorbit and some others *will* get hit and further contribute to the
> Kessler syndrome. Already happened with one operational Iridium
> satellite and there are many fewer of those.
> 
> I still think fiber is the right answer for high speed Internet
> connectivity to buildings in all but the most isolated places. The main
> obstacle is political, not economic, especially the unholy alliance
> between broadband providers and governments to restrict new entries to
> the market. And it really bugs me whenever a political problem
> encourages the squandering of a valuable natural resource.
> 
> --Phil
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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