The human-generated thrash that's been increasingly filling the orbit of the Earth for decades now turns more and more into a serious problem. Since it is already past the phase of saying a lot about us as a race, something must be done before spacecraft and satellites are actually affected by it. Thus, proper ideas on dealing with the garbage must be found quickly before turning into a gridlock preventing further spacecraft launches.

That is why the Spacelaunch corporation, a major technology provider for the space transportation industry, has come up with an initiative that searches for viable ideas to provide an efficient way to dispose of the junk in space. "Even though recent efforts have been successful in minimizing the amount of new debris, the number of debris pieces continues to increase," explained Bob Russo from Launchspace Training for Space. "If space-faring nations continue to ignore this growing space access challenge, we will reach a gridlock situation in which launching satellites is too risky. Thus, a space cleanup is inevitable."

 

"Launchspace has received a number of creative responses to our request for answers. Over the next few months, we will be issuing comments and assessments about realistic ideas," added Russo. "Our objective is to raise awareness to this potential future denial of space applications and exploration."

 

So far, the ideas sent address both disposing of the current garbage and preventing further mess from being instilled upon our orbital space. Some of these include a prize for a junk-retrieving company, a football field-sized net anchored on satellites and passive machines that would sweep the areas. But the concept of "garbage scows" still remains the most appreciated one. The scows would be human controlled or totally robotic devices that would slowly collect a garbage piece at a time until they eventually clear a large area and are brought down from the orbit.