Quote:
Originally Posted by August
First they have to figure out how to catch things going thousands of miles per hour.
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Well, the trick is to also go thousands of miles an hour, then get the object, slow down orbital velocity and then let go, and then return to orbital velocity while the object falls into the earths atmosphere and burns up.
The kicker is that you need a base to operate from, fuel to use, personnel rotation, all that logistical fun and games. The actual garbage collection is relatively straight forward (relative within the framework of doing stuff in space itself which is already not that simple) it's more the costs and logistics which mean that it hasn't been done yet.
Of course, as space tourism starts to be a thing, as soon as someones space-plane gets a hole ripped in it by part of a Soviet satellite from 1986 then clearing up space junk will suddenly become a more feasible mission.
