Friday, January 3, 2020

I haven't mentioned space debris for awhile


Yes, I haven't mentioned space junk (aka "debris") for awhile, but now that lots and lots and lots of mini-satellites are being sent into orbit, it's still a concern.

So now there's a satellite that's going to be capable of de-orbiting defunct satellites, which may help a bit.

It’s the First Orbiting Garbage Collector—or a New Kind of Space Weapon

Here's the Web site:  ClearSpace Today

And here's an artist's idea of what the satellite under development and construction will look like in space, as it tracks a defunct satellite:















Here's an artistic idea of what the satellite will look like as it captures its first target object:




















That reminded me of something.



















That's a model of the SPECTRE Bird One from the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice, in the processs of capturing a NASA Gemini space capsule, and also cutting off the astronaut on the umbilical.  Video excerpt of the same scene: that was an evil thing to do.   But what do you expect from Ernst Stavro Blofeld?

Interestingly, the linked article refers to a similar possibility:
"Now imagine if a rogue state or some future high-tech terror group sent a craft similar to ClearSpace-1 to intercept and de-orbit, say, an active missile-warning satellite or even the space station. “There is of course a potential that certain regimes will find such technology abusively interesting,” Daniel Campbell, managing director of U.K. space firm Effective Space, told The Daily Beast back in early 2019."
Even worse, what if a one-eyed supervillain who likes cats gets control of one of those space junk collectors?!!


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