Then we could potentially use that as our advantage. Notwithstanding working equipment orbiting in that region, it seems like a well calculated Nudge could cause a cascade effect that could deorbit a bunch of that junk.

Alternately, I'll bet that stuff would be worth a LOT if it could be sucessufully salvage iit. All we need are refineries in space and some garbage collectors. I mean recycling it seems like the best route to go, considering launch costs.

__________________
The More I learn, The More Ignorant I Become

Eagle Eye Observatory

I think you're underestimating the forces involved here. At the relative speeds we're talking about, these aren't 'nudges'. These are extremely fast, extremely destructive collisions which send debris off in chaotic and unpredictable paths. You're getting collisions between objects moving at tens of thousands of miles an hour. There's nothing controllable about them.

__________________
The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

At current launch costs (about $10,000 per pound for the Shuttle, maybe 1/2 that for Delta IV) if pure gold bricks were orbiting around the earth it wouldn't be worth it to retrieve them.

Doodler, the pic isn't being served from the BBS server. It is just a link to the Wikimedia server and doesn't have any effect on the BBS server bandwidth. That's the same for any picture posted here.

The problem with the sodium-potassium droplets is the orbit they are in is high enough they won't decay very soon and so pose a hazard for a long time. When I used the term "critical mass" I wasn't referring to fission but simply to the quantity of junk.


The chain reaction problem is that if stuff starts to collide and break up it could all of a sudden result in an exponential increase of junk too small to track but plenty big enough to be hazardous.

__________________
When I am done here I think I will go create something from metal.

I don't mean retrieve them and bring them back, I mean retrieve them and recycle them in space. hell is nothing else, orbit a sorting facility with a few tugs that would go out and collect it, bring it back to the sorting facility and sort them, compact them into blocks or place them into containers then re-orbit the containers until need the materials?

__________________
The More I learn, The More Ignorant I Become

Eagle Eye Observatory

It just isn't possible. The garbage is in every conceivable orbit. Prograde, retrograde, polar and everywhere in between at all sorts of altitudes and eccentricities. No conceivable "space tug" can be built with the delta vee to go get it. Catching the stuff at up to twice orbital velocity is like catching a bullet in your teeth except much worse.

About the only thing that I can think might work is an orbiting high power laser system that could vaporize objects to plasma. This would then deorbit in short order. There would of course be some stiff opposition to this as it would constitute a space weapons system.

__________________
When I am done here I think I will go create something from metal.

How long does it take for a mobilephone sized garbage item in standart Shuttle orbit to come back down to earth and glow in the athmosphere??

Well how long do the estimate it will be before our launch capabilities are severely hindered?

__________________
The More I learn, The More Ignorant I Become

Eagle Eye Observatory

I have no idea when or even if a "chain reaction" will occur and neither does anyone else. It is just a possibility that seems plausible. All it might take is some catastrophic event such as the breakup of the ISS from an impact or some other event such as a booster explosion.

As for orbital decay it seems that the shuttle itself at 350km would deorbit in about a year. For other objects it greatly depends on the surface area/density ratio. The greater the mass ratio the longer it will stay in orbit. Anything above about 1000km will last >100 years. The ISS is decaying about 1 to 2 km per week at 345 km.

This is greatly dependent on solar activity which can expand the atmosphere when active.

__________________
When I am done here I think I will go create something from metal.

A nice little graph of the ISS orbital decay can be seen here.

__________________
"A mystic is a person who is puzzled before the obvious but who understands the nonexistent." -- Elbert Hubbard

Air and Space this month has yet another explanation. They do discuss the antenna issue, however, there is a reason the antennas aren't just lined up with the ground to begin with...

according to the blip in the magazine, it has to do with the way the shuttle is attached to the booster on the assembly building. when it is attached, it is apparently facing the wrong way. since the moving thing (launchpad...what's it called, dang) can't exactly turn around easily once it clears the building, the task is done shortly after launch when it's a (relatively) simple matter of control surfaces and not a whole rocket+pad+tower+whatever other problems may be encountered on the ground.

__________________
None to speak of

I've heard that reasoning before, but not sure it's the whole story.

Pad 39A/B were built for the Saturn V, oriented due south. That means the road, the ramp, the flame trenches, etc. were all designed for a vehicle approaching from the south. See below images.

Of course NASA could have just built a new pad and ramp but considering the pad base contains 52000 cubic meters of concrete that would be pretty expensive.

Maybe they could have mounted the shuttle sideways on the crawler/transporter, and designed the stacking hardware in the Vehicle Assembly Building for that orientation.

However due to different launch trajectories (28 degrees for Hubble, 52 degrees for ISS) a roll maneuver would still be required.

Their reasoning probably was why spend all the money since it would only reduce (not eliminate) the roll maneuver.

http://www.enviropacific.com/images/clip_image013.jpg
http://www.crista.uni-wuppertal.de/deutsch/pad39a.jpg
https://www.patrick.af.mil/heritage/...s/cape090f.jpg