<story><title>Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit</title><url>https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/apple-founder-wozniak-space-debris-company-b1919747.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cletus</author><text>So here&amp;#x27;s a potential business model for this: salvage rights.&lt;p&gt;When ships sink, the owner generally still retains ownership of any property. Sometimes the location of the wreck is known. Sometimes it needs to be found. It can cost a lot of money to find a wreck and recover any property.&lt;p&gt;So salvage rights are a principle of maritime law such that whoever does this is entitled to a reward commensurate with the value of the goods recovered (eg 10%).&lt;p&gt;I imagine there are orbital slots that are essentially unusable because of space debris (eg Project West Ford [1]). If orbital slots are sufficiently scarce then these could have value. At some point it may become commercial to spend the effort cleaning up an orbit and making it available. Companies could then be compensated for the value they create this way.&lt;p&gt;I do believe this will still require a dramatic decrease in launch costs, as in orders of magnitude more. But we&amp;#x27;ll see.&lt;p&gt;My personal belief (and hope) is that the future of getting into orbit is orbital rings [2]. If so, that completely changes the game because cleaning up an orbit essentially becomes a problem of just holding up a giant &amp;quot;paddle&amp;quot; (for lack of a better word) that is fixed to a point on Earth (essentially) and just letting the debris hit it.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Project_West_Ford&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Project_West_Ford&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=LMbI6sk-62E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=LMbI6sk-62E&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>laumars</author><text>There was a Korean movie about a vaguely similar topic: salvaging space debris that I enjoyed&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.imdb.com&amp;#x2F;title&amp;#x2F;tt12838766&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.imdb.com&amp;#x2F;title&amp;#x2F;tt12838766&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Steve Wozniak announces private space company to clean up space debris in orbit</title><url>https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/apple-founder-wozniak-space-debris-company-b1919747.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cletus</author><text>So here&amp;#x27;s a potential business model for this: salvage rights.&lt;p&gt;When ships sink, the owner generally still retains ownership of any property. Sometimes the location of the wreck is known. Sometimes it needs to be found. It can cost a lot of money to find a wreck and recover any property.&lt;p&gt;So salvage rights are a principle of maritime law such that whoever does this is entitled to a reward commensurate with the value of the goods recovered (eg 10%).&lt;p&gt;I imagine there are orbital slots that are essentially unusable because of space debris (eg Project West Ford [1]). If orbital slots are sufficiently scarce then these could have value. At some point it may become commercial to spend the effort cleaning up an orbit and making it available. Companies could then be compensated for the value they create this way.&lt;p&gt;I do believe this will still require a dramatic decrease in launch costs, as in orders of magnitude more. But we&amp;#x27;ll see.&lt;p&gt;My personal belief (and hope) is that the future of getting into orbit is orbital rings [2]. If so, that completely changes the game because cleaning up an orbit essentially becomes a problem of just holding up a giant &amp;quot;paddle&amp;quot; (for lack of a better word) that is fixed to a point on Earth (essentially) and just letting the debris hit it.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Project_West_Ford&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Project_West_Ford&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=LMbI6sk-62E&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=LMbI6sk-62E&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mc32</author><text>At the speeds those things whiz by, what sort of materials are there that can withstand impacts and not create more debris?  Or do they try to do it via relative speeds and say let them hit the &amp;quot;paddle&amp;quot; at 50mph?  And in that case, might it not be more effective to have hunting &amp;quot;nets&amp;quot; to collect the objects?</text></comment>