# Space debris: what can we do with unwanted satellites?



## onan38 (Jul 17, 2008)

There are thousands of satellites in Earth orbit, of varying age and usefulness. At some point they reach the end of their lives, at which point they become floating junk. What do we do with them then?

http://theconversation.com/space-debris-what-can-we-do-with-unwanted-satellites-40736


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## yosoyellobo (Nov 1, 2006)

Junk yard sale.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Fireworks ... drop them into the atmosphere to celebrate holidays.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

The ones that can be put into a graveyard orbit or deorbited and burned up are one thing, the big issue is the stuff we can't do that with. But now we're even littering Mercury with satellite debris.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Yeah... it's one of those problems nobody seemed to think about. Bad enough the stuff that falls to earth, but remember too... these things are ZIPPING around the Earth even in a decaying orbit. Lots of little projectiles out there that cause problems during space launches and space walks for the astronauts up there. There really needs to have been a cleanup plan in place before everyone started putting so much stuff in orbit. Pretty much as soon as they had the science to put things in orbit, they should have been able to predict the literal downfalls soon to come.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Stewart Vernon said:


> Yeah... it's one of those problems nobody seemed to think about.


The tin can I threw out the car window isn't the problem. It is the millions of cans that other people tossed out their windows that are the problem.


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## lwilli201 (Dec 22, 2006)

I would hope that sometime in the future world powers will have the capacity to clean up the junk. New satellites should be required to have enought fuel to shot them at the sun but today the added weight would be a real problem.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

Target practice.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

James Long said:


> The tin can I threw out the car window isn't the problem. It is the millions of cans that other people tossed out their windows that are the problem.


That does seem to be the thinking far too often, doesn't it?


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## trh (Nov 3, 2007)

Interesting current status on space debris.

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20150002836.pdf


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## MysteryMan (May 17, 2010)

SayWhat? said:


> Target practice.


That would only add insult to misery turning those thousands of satellites into millions of debris particles.


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