Superfund proposed for space junk cleanup

There are, right now, at least half a million pieces of junk in orbit around our cosmic Pig Pen of a planet. Space junk isn’t just an aesthetic problem, either: Even tiny pieces of junk orbit at speeds above 15,000 miles per hour, so even the tiniest bit of debris can cause serious damage to anything it comes into contact with. Space junk threatens satellites, manned space missions and even the International Space Station.

Image: European Space Agency

What should we do about it? Scientists have proposed various methods for retrieving our cosmic crap, but so far there’s been no push to implement any of them. A new DARPA-commissioned report produced by the RAND Corporation suggests that we look to more banal cleanup programs for our cue. It proposes a Superfund for space that would hold governments and corporations accountable for their orbital junk and raise money to begin cleanup.

Ultimately, RAND researchers hope, the Superfund would help create a culture in which space littering is considered unacceptable.

However, the report’s chief author observes, we may need to see a disaster before public opinion really grasps that space junk, which earthlings can’t see, is an urgent problem. Neither the 2009 collision between a defunct Russian weather satellite and an active Iridium satellite nor the spew of junk China launched in 2007, which continues to pose a serious threat to hundreds of working satellites, been serious enough to light a fire under public opinion.