Russia Spending $2 Billion to Play Garbage Man in Outer Space

[Sledgstone 8,672]

http://gizmodo.com/5698734/russia-spending-2-billion-to-play-garbage-man-in-outer-space

All those defunct satellites up in space? They don't just float away into the ether. Instead, they make space travel dangerous. That's why Russia is spending $2 billion on a craft to clean up around 600 pieces of space junk.

Space Daily reports that Russia's space corporation, Energia, plans to build a pod that will float through orbit for 15 years, get those old satellites out of the way, and then head back down to Earth itself.

The nuclear-powered pod should be finished around 2020, and will be fully operational by 2023 if all goes to plan. Fast Company thinks that the pod won't so much collect the space pieces as it will knock them out of orbit so that they fall back to Earth, where they'll either burn up or splash down.

Oh and the other thing Energia is working on? An interceptor defense system for any space object that might crash into earth. [space Daily via Fast Company]

There is definitely a space junk issue in orbit.. but maybe Russia is doing this to make all those pieces of junk crash down on Russia's land so they can salvage all those rare minerals from the satellites or get access to some other countries tech? And if they're going to have a space bumper car up there, they could technically bump all kinds of satellites out of orbit so they could send projectiles down all over the globe in a war situation. Or maybe I'm just overthinking this...

[Myk JL 1,731]

I was hoping for a futurama scenerio with some sort of smelloscope!

[Ladywriter 7,783]

at some point people are going to realize earth has reached max occupancy and we're gonna need to find /create places for us all off world. Its a good idea to start clearing the path now

[Myk JL 1,731]

at some point people are going to realize earth has reached max occupancy and we're gonna need to find /create places for us all off world. Its a good idea to start clearing the path now

There is still the problem of zero gravity to deal with too....

[Pchan 5,162]

Good idea.