Space Debris: The problem that could trap us on Earth for centuries - and destroy the internet

Since the dawn of the space age with Sputnik 1 in 1957, we humans have been making a bit of a mess. All the satellites, pieces from rockets, or even tools and machinery are floating around in space as we speak. No big deal, right? Wrong. These chunks, called space debris, reach speeds of 34,500 kilometers per hour. At that speed, even paint flecks can cause serious damage.

In 2016, a 7mm wide impact crater in 1-inch thick glass on the International Space Station was caused by a paint flake or small metal fragment no bigger than a few thousandths of a millimeter across. A few thousandths of a millimeter is the size of a red blood cell. Let that sink in for a second. If a red blood cell-sized paint flake can cause a chip in 1 inch thick quadruple glazed glass, think of what something bigger could do. An object the size of a marble? What about the size of an apple? A smashed window on the ISS would almost certainly result in the deaths of everyone on board. As of now, there are about 200,000 pieces of debris larger than a softball, but that number is growing and would result in a cage-like formation of space debris around the Earth, stopping us from venturing out and all but ending the space age.

So, in space, even minuscule things can cause massive damage. But what about bigger things? For example, a satellite? If two satellites the size of cars were to collide, it could create a terrible chain reaction that would progressively worsen. In space, a collision is more of a splash than a crash, which means that lots of pieces of space debris are produced in the case of a collision. This makes the chance of another crash higher and higher. But even so, while this chain reaction isn’t happening yet, several satellites are being destroyed by space debris each year. Satellites are, of course, essential to daily life, and a mass loss of satellites would result in our technology going back to the 1970s. And yes, that means no internet.

What are we doing to stop Space Debris? 

The US Department of Defense is responsible for tracking the space debris, which is done with lasers. The laser beam hits the debris in space and bounces back to Earth, where ground crews can use the amount of time it took for the laser to travel to the piece of debris and back to gauge where the debris is and where it is going. They can track objects that are the size of a softball and larger. However, there are systems in place that will help us track even smaller pieces of debris more efficiently. An example of this is the Kiwi Space Radar in New Zealand, which will be able to track objects as small as an inch in diameter. Once we have tracked the space debris, systems such as a small probe with an expandable net or harpoon to grasp and slow down the debris, an electromagnet or electric propulsion system which would alter the orbit of the debris leading it to fall towards Earth and burn up, or perhaps even a laser to ablate the debris and thus make it fall towards Earth and burn up. 

When will we start?

We asked NASA employee Jessi Horelica if it would take until 2035 or 2045 to remove all of the debris. She said:

“I think it would take a little longer. There are 20,000 pieces of debris we can track, so that means at least bigger than a softball, and things smaller than that we can’t even track. So I think it's probably gonna take a bit longer because you have to track the debris for a certain amount of time, figure out how to rendezvous with that particular piece of debris, and then harpoon it or throw your net at it. I think it would take, probably many many years to clean things up, but I think we will hopefully get started within the next 5 to 10 years, and then in 15 or 20 we will have gotten a significant chunk of that debris down.”

This process would likely cost billions of dollars, but it is worth it and the United States and NASA have the budget to execute. Despite the famously shrinking budget of NASA, the space debris cleanup effort will not put them under financial stress.

We humans are striving to be clean. Efforts are being made to clean up our trash from nature and cities. While slow progress is being made in cleaning up the planet, a requirement is present to clean up space too. The advantage of being able to start the cleanup before things get out of hand is a perfect chance to take, so what is stopping humans from doing so? Using one year of NASA’s yearly budget spread out over a few decades, humans could clean up our extraterrestrial mess, and the time to do it is now.