I remember asking once, we don’t we just shoot our surplus trash off into the sun and was told that by the cost of launching it outweighs the benefits. Fair!

But what about all of the old satellites and space stations? Why don’t we just send a giant magnet around the earth once or twice and then slingshot all that space junk into the sun and thus giving all science fiction writers (when they return from their strike) a plot point they can no longer use in their film scripts?

Seriously though, without the cost of breaching the atmosphere, this seems really cheap to pull, why don’t we do this? Why isn’t this a standard thing?

  • drkt@feddit.dkEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    Recycling earth-bound trash is significantly cheaper and better for everyone than launching it into space.

    The energy required to send derelict satellites into the sun is far more than they would carry as on-board fuel if they even work anymore. It would be better to de-orbit them into our own atmosphere. Even with the advent of reusable rocket stages, launching rockets into GEO is still not cheap and I’m not sure re-usable rockets have the lifting capacity for a tug since it would carry a lot of extra fuel to perform multiple rendezvous and de-orbit.

    It’s just kinda not viable, but also a dumb idea because you should recycle. We should strive to adapt our lifestyles to become sustainable, not launch our excess into space.

    • sabreW4K3@lemmy.tfOPMEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      We should recycle and decompose everything on Earth and anything that can’t be recycled or decomposed, shouldn’t be made, that goes without saying… But this is about the space debris, the satellites, the nuts and bolts, the broken parts of space stations, the old space stations and I’m not suggesting we fly them, hence talking about sling shots, I’m talking about pushing them and letting the applied force carry it all to the sun.