Space Station Turning Into a Trash Heap 312
quintin3265 writes "Apparently, the International Space Station is becoming overloaded with junk, stored among other places in a now unused airlock. Since shuttles aren't visiting the station, the station's occupants can't return broken machines to Earth. Furthermore, the only way they can dispose of trash and human waste is by loading these items in Russian cargo ships that burn up in the atmosphere."
what?? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:what?? (Score:5, Informative)
Not to mention that they'd create a minefield for resupply missions.
Re:what?? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:what?? (Score:5, Informative)
This is what Progress supply rockets did for Mir, BTW. Supplied fuel, food, air, water, etc.. to the station and took garbage back and burned up in the atmosphere. Cheap and effective.
Re:what?? (Score:2)
Re:what?? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:what?? (Score:2)
--
Always current promotions at Circuit City. [dealsites.net]
Re:what?? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:what?? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is indicative of the general situation about space travel. As the populous of nations that make journeys to space, we should be embarrassed and distraught. The last 40 years of space travel have been stale and unproductive, despite huge rises in government expenditure and GNP.
The failure of the International Space Station is an embarressment for humankind in general. Not only does it show that we cant work together as a species in one of the most important areas with one of the highest productive scientific potentials ever, but it shows that people in general (Especially politicians) care only about themselves. Knowledge and progress mean nothing to politicians and the general population. Instead we spend trillions incarcerating each other, giving corporations tax breaks and polluting the environment. It is perhaps ironic that the fruits of space travel would solve many of our problems, most importantly THE ENVIRONMENT (the single most important thing that ANYONE should care about) and creation of jobs (of almost equal important)
Space travel used to be a matter of national pride. As self esteem and pride goes down the toilet, and as politicians fight wars against drugs and "terror" (Is anyone REALLY terrified?) no one seems to care anymore.
Re:what?? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a bit one-sided... I believe those things are important to the majority. The difference is that the majority does not believe space travel will bring knowledge & progress, so it isn't worth their money at the moment. I disagree with that opinion, but there it is.
Re:what?? (Score:2)
That probably was the plan... Problem is, there are no shuttles coming up anymore.
Re:what?? (Score:3, Informative)
The shuttles had more room for garbage but they aren't flying now.
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
Re:what?? (Score:2)
Why not just fill them with garbage anyway then? If the heat of reentry is enough to burn up the ship, surely it could incinerate some trash that's carried along with it.
Re:what?? (Score:2)
Some of the junk could be thrown 'out the back' of the ISS to try and help maintain the station's orbit, but the effects would be minimal. Unless it's a really large amount of poo at very high speed.
Re:what?? (Score:3, Funny)
Or I suppose the next Progress resupply could bring up a giant poo cannon...
trash powered rocketry! (Score:3, Interesting)
Ah, but if they go on spacewalk in order to heave it behind (relative to orbital path) the station, the station will pick up orbital speed and the trash will loose orbital speed. They'll use a little less fuel in height correction and the garbage will fall to the atmosphere and everyone wins! That's what all rocketry boils down to doing; throwing something (usually burning fuel) out the back in order move fowa
Re:what?? (Score:3, Insightful)
BTW, this is one of the more useful lessons of space exploration: there is no "away" in "throwing away" - it always comes back to haunt you. It's just that in space, no one can hide your scrap.
An idea... (Score:4, Interesting)
There are 2 ways you are going to get rid of trash from the space station. Carry it home in the space shuttle, or launch it somewhere.
The Russian ships don't have room to carry stuff back, but here is the thing, you don't have to carry it ALL the way home. Grab a hefty bag, stuff it with trash, and tie it to the back of the capsul as you head back to Earth. You can either release it once it has enough momentum to quickly leave orbit, or drag it in behind you and let it seperate as it burns up.
Alternately, if you go with the 'Dump the trash before entering hyperspace' Imperial method, you have to have a way to get it clear of anywhere you might want to travel. Since we don't know WHERE we might want to travel, just launching it into space to float around for a few billion years seems...shortsighted. So, either a) burn it up by shooting it at the sun, or drop it on a planet.
So how do we do that, cheaply? There was a solar sail technology developed a year or two back, which involved a magnetically generated sail. Would it be cost effective to put a small power source on your trash, and fire it off at a target? I recall that the technology didn't seem too complicated, and the speeds that it could attain were fairly large. Just don't use one of those nuclear batteries mentioned a few days ago on
Re:what?? (Score:2)
Re:what?? (Score:2)
Re:what?? (Score:3, Insightful)
afaik, there is still some amount of gravity force acting upon the ISS, which is why they have to periodically thrust it back to its orbital position.. stuff thrown out of the ISS should eventually drop down to earth.
I hope there is "gravity force" affecting the ISS. After all, we know Earth's gravity is powerful enough to keep the Moon in orbit ;-)
Anyway, most satellites in low orbit, around 250 miles, still have some bits and pieces of atmosphere to contend with. Granted the particles are so few and f
Re:what?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:what?? (Score:2)
Re:what?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:what?? (Score:3, Interesting)
Anything you meet in space is traveling very very fast.
Ever seen someone flick a cigarette butt out the window of his truck, and have it land in his load of firewood in the back? Oops is a word you don't want to hear in space.
Re:what?? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A question of relativity... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you were to "meet" the trash you threw out in orbit, it might be moving at significant velocity, but then, so are you, right? I mean, if something moving at 17,000 miles per hour hits something moving in the same direction at 17,002 miles per hour, it's not the end of the world, is it?
Correct, the difference between those two speeds is small enough that it would not be an issue. The problem is that just throwing items out the window is not as simple as it sounds. Giving an item a different trajectory
Re:what?? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:what?? (Score:2)
Re:what?? (Score:2)
I can see it now: Centuries from now, The U.S.S. Enterprise is going along when suddenly - SLAM! One of these bags hits it. Kirk and Sp
Re:what?? (Score:2)
Re:what?? (Score:5, Funny)
For evey action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. If you change the orbit of the excrement, you also slightly change the orbit of the space station. Since there's a bit of atmospheric drag in that low orbit, that might be a good thing. De-orbiting the trash will tend to counter the drag which is slowing the space station.
So, we change orbits by flinging poo. We'll call it the monkey drive.
relativity (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:relativity (Score:2)
Space Garbage (Score:5, Informative)
An alternate you might suggest is toss it out hard enough to fall into the atmosphere and burn up... Think again! If you do that, you push yourself away from the earth, destabilize your orbit, and lose the station.
A non-trivial problem...
We need a space elevator!
--LWM
Re:Space Garbage (Score:2)
An alternate you might suggest is toss it out hard enough to fall into the atmosphere and burn up... Think again! If you do that, you push yourself away from the earth, destabilize your orbit, and lose the station.
Interestingly, the station needs a periodic reboost anyway.If they could use the trash as reaction mass, it would accomplish that and put the trash into a nice unstable orbit all set to burn up. The real problem is how to accelerate the trash enough. Mass drivers are cool, but they have nowher
Re:Space Garbage (Score:2)
Rather than ejecting space junk using a directional force, couldn't you use a couple of contra-rotating buckets (like a centrifuge). At the right angle, release the buckets and the junk would fly out and away.
Re:Space Garbage (Score:2)
Actually, they have been having this problem ever since the shuttle incident. I don't know how this is any news...
If I had a better memory, I could probably tell who is working on it and what it is called, but there is a module developped by europeans that will solve this problem. It will basically bring supplies up and trash down at a lower cost than lunching a shuttle or a russian rocket.
That explains.... (Score:4, Interesting)
That explains the numerous meteor showers lately...they're just cleaning house or flushing the space toilet.
Really though, won't most of the stuff they have there just burn up quickly upon reentry? can't they just get some big nets and laso all of the garbage together for a day or two and then give it a push towards Earth?
Re:That explains.... (Score:2)
Re:That explains.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That explains.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:That explains.... (Score:5, Interesting)
It is a fact that the ISS's orbit does continually degrade. This is why it keeps a store of fuel ... and sometimes the shuttle itself is (was) used to push it into a higher orbit.
I'd recon that the mass of the ISS far outweighs the mass of any garbage ejected. Therefore for the force applied to the ejected garbage would impart far greater a velocity change on the garbage than it would on the ISS. True ... using some kind of spring contraption to 'de orbit' thier garbage would impart some velocity into the ISS. However, the net effect would be to counteract to some degree the fact that the orbit is already constantly degrading. But even that ... i'd imagine the amount would be negligable.
Now ... why don't they have a garbage ejector? Probably because such a device would be heavy, bulky and probably never work right anyway. It'd be a real pain in the butt to have to calculate orbital vectors every time you wanted to take out the trash. Also, I'd imagine that much of the 'junk' that needs to be taken out they don't WANT to burn up. It is probably expensive broken equipment that could be reconditioned and put back in service.
Re:That explains.... (Score:5, Informative)
And the last thing we need is literaly crap punshing holes in space shuttles
Re:That explains.... (Score:2)
Re:That explains.... (Score:2)
Re:That explains.... (Score:2)
Re:That explains.... (Score:2)
Re:That explains.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Duck! The sky... err... moon is falling!
Not.
Things must fall out of Low Earth Orbit because there's friction from thin atmosphere that slows them down. In higher orbital planes, there's very little to cause a satellite (artificial or natural) to slow down.
snow (Score:5, Funny)
So even if the snow doesn't look yellow, it's probably not good to eat.
aye caramba! (Score:5, Funny)
And to think... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And to think... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:And to think... (Score:2)
To the sun! (Score:5, Funny)
Homer: The sun? That's the hottest place on Earth!
Re:To the sun! (Score:2, Funny)
Obligatory One Liners (Score:3, Funny)
An unused airlock is where redneck america of the future will store all their unused junk, making the storage business obsolete.
Imperial Space Stations always dump their trash before jumping to hyperspace. That's just standard procedure, duh!
Major Tom to Ground Control -- mission accomplished...now how do I flush?
Sell it on Ebay (Score:5, Funny)
Shipping: Check item description and payment instructions or contact seller for details
They haven't Learned Anythng....... (Score:2, Insightful)
NASA lost it's brains in the 80"s but has it entirely lost it's heart as well?
Take a lesson from DMB (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Take a lesson from DMB (Score:4, Funny)
nasa.ebay.com (Score:5, Insightful)
If NASA can't sell space junk, then Congress needs to give them the ability to do so. It makes sense that you can't find another piece of the Shuttle in East Texas and sell it... it makes no sense that you can't take a blob of solder melted in space and sell *that*.
Re:nasa.ebay.com (Score:2, Informative)
Re:nasa.ebay.com (Score:2, Insightful)
BTW, I was replying to the parent where NASA can bring back space junk. Not in this case
Re:nasa.ebay.com (Score:3, Funny)
One word... (Score:5, Funny)
The Klingon Spin (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The Klingon Spin (Score:2)
Empty Oxygen tanks, $.10 (Score:3, Funny)
spaceballs? (Score:2)
CB^%*&
Flaming Poo (Score:5, Funny)
Let the flaming poo jokes commence.
Re:Flaming Poo (Score:2)
Let the flaming poo jokes commence.
Maybe RotoRooter [rotorooter.com] could set up a target in the South Pacific...
**rimshot**
**crowd boos, throws things on stage**
The Trash Heap? (Score:4, Funny)
Shuttle vs Soyuz (Score:5, Interesting)
On the whole, the Shuttle has proved to be an impractical vehicle; it tries to be everything and does nothing properly. Most people in the industry now believe that the Shuttle flights should end 2010. Replace them with three different vehicles: a capsule like Soyuz for getting people into space and back again, expendable launches for hauling cargo up to space, and (something we haven't seen before) an inflatable return vehicle for bringing back large objects. I'm only aware of one instance of the latter, Russia has it (see last entry on this page [russianspaceweb.com]).
Foam? (Score:3, Interesting)
I once saw at an electronics equipment factory how they pack irregularly shaped objects. They have a gun which mixes two liquids. These react creating an unbelievable amount of foam. From two finger-sized blobs of liquid they get a box full of foam.
So, why can't they use that kind of foam as an ablative heat shield? The two liquids could come in two glass tubes, inside a plastic bag. Twist the bag to break the
Unbelievable amount != heat-resistant (Score:3, Interesting)
...which about sums it up. You need some pretty kickass foam to survive reentry, even partially.
And it's gotta be cheap, if you're using that much of it. Creating enough buoyancy to keep a large object afloat -- again, with only a partial (and unknown!) amount of foam remaining -- is going to take a lot of it.
And it's gotta be non-soluble, if it's supposed to survive in an ocean long enough for a recovery team to find it.
Then you gotta make it relatively non-toxic, because it will be entering our b
Romanticized science fiction (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Romanticized science fiction (Score:4, Informative)
HAN: (sarcastically) Oh! The garbage chute was a really wonderful
idea. What an incredible smell you've discovered! Let's get out of
here! Get away from there...
and, in a later film
HAN: Well, if they follow standard Imperial procedure, they'll dump
their garbage before they go to light-speed, then we just float away.
consult the American Way(tm)... (Score:2, Redundant)
Blow that trash to smithereens!!
No you can't just chuck the junk into space. (Score:5, Informative)
-- Greg
Re:No you can't just chuck the junk into space. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not "junk", exactly... (Score:3, Insightful)
Space station refuse = new hurricane theory (Score:3, Funny)
No problem (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Hey! (Score:4, Funny)
Crispin
Let's look at some of the assumptions... (Score:2)
As has been pointed out multiple times, the gravitational pull in high earth orbit isn't enough solve the problem. Think about it: if the station isn't affected by the pull of Earth's gravity, something with far less mass isn't going to feel the tug. It would take serious thrust to move the debris out of into an unstable orbit. Possible, but not practical.
Assuming, of course, that
They need a trash compactor (Score:2)
It's not like the neighbors would complain... (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait a minute... (Score:2, Insightful)
I should've known, what with all the empty cans of Tang in the driveway.
IronChefMorimoto
Nuclear Rockets are the Answer (Score:5, Informative)
Such a rocket could lift 2 million pounds of payload into low orbit (compared to the Shuttle's 60,000 pound capacity) and return with 2 million pounds of cargo to a powered landing rather than an unpowered glide. There is very little information about this technology on the web, but I believe the big aerospace firms are looking into GCNR as the heavy lift engine of the future.
Re:Nuclear Rockets are the Answer (Score:3, Funny)
Like those neighbors we all whisper about... (Score:2)
So once Virgin gets his space travel thing together it wont be much different than looking down the block of our earth neighborhoods.
I fail to see how this makes them special.. (Score:3, Funny)
So, the space shuttle is a garbage scow? (Score:3, Funny)
I meant to say that it should be hauled away AS garbage" -- Korax (The Trouble With Tribbles)
Junk worth more than gold (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, this is the bureaucracy that junked an entire working space station....
Use it to make Contact (Score:3, Funny)
Only problem would be if all that excreta and broken electronic junk somehow evolved, creating a bionic life form and coming back to haunt us a few hundred years from now as the Son of V'ger...
Re:burn up on re=entry? (Score:2)
Re:Sad News - Gordon Cooper Dead (Score:2)
WRONG! (Score:3, Informative)