Dr. Marshall Kaplan of Johns Hopkins Discusses Debris Removal Options
Dr. Marshall Kaplan of Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) was the featured speaker today for the Space Security Lunch Series co-sponsored by Secure World Foundation and the University of Colorado Aerospace Law and Policy Association (ALPA). His talk, held at the University of Colorado Law School, was titled "Space Debris: A Growth Industry." Before an audience which included interested parties, students and a Constituent Advocate for Congressman Jared Polis, Dr. Kaplan introduced the problem of orbital debris from a historical perspective. He discussed how he proposed a method for extracting Sputnik 1 from orbit shortly after its launch and described how he participated in studies to deorbit Skylab safely, since the space station did not have the propulsive means to maneuver.
Dr. Kaplan then talked about current affairs, focusing on the increasing number of incidents ranging from the Chinese anti-satellite (ASAT) test of January 2007 to the collision of Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 in February of this year. Using these examples as foundation, Dr. Kaplan went on to introduce a variety of engineering solutions designed to remove debris (as opposed to mitigating future generation of debris, the second part of the problem).
Several students remarked at how unfamiliar they were with the problem, and looked forward to amount of work that they can be a part of as the international community works toward solutions to the problem. The Foundation and ALPA are grateful to Dr. Kaplan for taking the time to discuss this important issue.
posted by Secure World Foundation Blog @ 1:05 PM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
Has anyone considered the low tech approach of orbiting a balloon (at 14.5 psi) that is self sealing. Any small object striking it will either be flashed to liquid or gas. Any object big enough to pass all the way through will lose enough energy to cause it's orbit to decay rapidly. Also each hit will decay the balloon's orbit so it will fall out of orbit also.
I have an idea for you guys - as you try to clean up space junk. How about a competition between universities - partnering with private industries - that would allow students/researchers to come up with/test/then execute a space cleanup plan.
There would be a time limit (say, 5 years) and the team that removed the most pieces of "junk" from space would be awarded a $250 million dollar expansion for their University's science departments, and the team would be hired by the US government to continue the work as needed. I could see a process as follows:
1. Teams submit their proposal to your foundation.
2. Your foundation, along with NASA, critique and then sign off on the proposed plan.
3. Each team then finds corporate or govt. sponsors who can either gain profit or publicity from the proposal.
4. The teams execute their plan under the supervision of NASA.
5. The winning team receives the prize for their University, are offered salary by the government to continue their work, and the sponsors receive their profit/publicity as agreed to in the plan.
I know there are dramatic obstacles to overcome, but competition is the fastest way to motivate the impossible. The original space race is proof enough of that!
Daniel Jarvis
eRevolution.us
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