The Space Junk Agency we need

[TomcatViP]

@riggerrob : you'd certainly like this movie then

 

[Josh_TN]

There’s already an anime of that; forgot the name.

I think ultimately the only cost effective solution will be huge solar farms with lasers the can impart thrust by burning the top surfaces of satellites as them come into range. It would be a slow process but it wouldn’t involve much reaction mass or energy input once you had the platforms set up. Slow constant burns should eventually push junk downwards over a long enough time frame. Anything super high risk that needs to be moved in a hurry would require a more hands on, less energy efficient mechanism.

 

[riggerrob]

There’s already an anime of that; forgot the name.

I think ultimately the only cost effective solution will be huge solar farms with lasers the can impart thrust by burning the top surfaces of satellites as them come into range. It would be a slow process but it wouldn’t involve much reaction mass or energy input once you had the platforms set up. Slow constant burns should eventually push junk downwards over a long enough time frame. Anything super high risk that needs to be moved in a hurry would require a more hands on, less energy efficient mechanism.

Are you saying that conventional explosives would not work well in space?
Would they provide to great a range of size of chunks of debris?
... running the risk that a few remaining bits of debris would be big enough to penetrate the atmosphere and hit the earth's surface intact?
What about clamping on retro-rockets to de-orbit space junk?

 

[riggerrob]

@riggerrob : you'd certainly like this movie then

I found the "Space Sweepers" trailers on Netflix and they look interesting.