Ashwin Sundar

Shooting Garbage at the Sun

SpaceX recently promised to bring the cost of getting cargo to space down to $10 per kilogram. At the same time, Starlink is placing thousands of satellites in orbit to beam information to every corner of Earth. Both of these futures seem to promise that Earth’s garbage problem will soon become space’s garbage problem. What are some potential solutions to this problem?

  1. The Orbital Wedge - a trapezoidal prism will be placed in a static orbit, and oriented with it’s large side facing Earth. Three sides shall face away from Earth - the top, and the two sides which angle towards the top. Any sufficiently small object which impacts it will be ejected away from Earth, thus clearing out the Earth’s orbit of space junk.

  2. The Sun Shooter - A re-usable rocket capable of ejecting material from Earth at a sufficient velocity such that it will eventually impact the Sun and be eaten. Is this bad for the Sun1? Who knows, but it’s no longer Earth’s problem!

  1. Every major religion and belief system places a great deal of reverence on the Sun as an entity. What would they say about us firing garbage at such a revered being? ↩︎