Garbage Disposal in Space

[kdavis007]

I have notice a lot of missions has been taking trash back to Earth.. Why don't they just dump the trash out in space???

 

[spacefire]

same reason you don't throw your garbage in your front and back yards. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[nexium]

The bent bolt you put in space may make a hole clear though a space craft a day or decade later. The life you save may be your own. Faster than a speeding bullet is not unusual for orbiting trash. Neil

 

[kdavis007]

They why don't they put it some kind of capsule and send to Earth and let it burn up???

 

[SpaceKiwi]

I would hardly consider the one visit of Shuttle in the best part of three years, with it's MPLM, a lot of 'trash' being returned to Earth. Much of the cargo returned in that MPLM included non-trash items; completed experiments, no longer needed equipment, accumulated electronics from the Progresses to be refurbished and reused by subsequent craft.<br /><br />In answer to your second observation that they should put trash into a capsule and let it burn up in the atmosphere, that's precisely what they do. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em><font size="2" color="#ff0000">Who is this superhero?  Henry, the mild-mannered janitor ... could be!</font></em></p><p><em><font size="2">-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</font></em></p><p><font size="5">Bring Back The Black!</font></p> </div>

 

[drwayne]

"They why don't they put it some kind of capsule and send to Earth and let it burn up???"<br /><br />They do, fairly frequently.<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

To elaborate, every unmanned Progress freighter that arrives at the station gets jammed as full of junk as they can get it when it's time to jettison it (which usually happens about a week before they need to clear a docking port for another Progress or a Soyuz). Then it is sealed up. It undocks and backs away under power, then deorbits itself on a predetermined trajectory specifically designed to consume as much of the vehicle as possible to reduce any risk to people on the ground.<br /><br />Trash is also brought down aboard the Shuttle, on the premise that if there's available space, it might as well be put to good use. It's not all destined for the incinerator; much of what gets brought down in the Shuttle is broken equipment which might be repairable. (If nothing else, engineers will want to look at it to figure out why it broke.) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[chriscdc]

There was a thread a while back explaining why you can't do this. Almost wish I hadn't told you that. <br /><br />Basically to make it enter the earths atmosphere, you have to change the orbit so that it will skim through the earths atmosphere. Considering that the earth is around 12570km in diameter and the orbit of the ISS is only a few hundred km above the surface, you can see that the change does not need to be that big. According to Shuttle_guy the change is around 250ft/s. Still too much of a change for someone to just throw it out. And also quite a bit of fuel needed to get rid the waste.<br /><br />Anything less than this change of orbit and the trash is likely to come back and wack your ship.

 

[CalliArcale]

And of course sometimes stuff is discarded accidentally. <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /> I remember on an ISS assembly mission not to long ago when a foot restraint drifted away before the astronauts could catch it again. It was tracked by USSPACECOM; I think it was up for a couple of weeks before it deorbited. Light stuff comes down faster than heavy stuff, but there's a fair bit of luck involved as well. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[rogers_buck]

Seems like a trash compactor and a cannon would be interesting. The garbage could be encapsulated and fired opposite to the direction of orbit. The delta-V of the trash would cause it to burn up in the atmosphere and the station would get a boost. Only problem would be if they all got space happy and started taking pot shots at the shuttle for being late...

 

[jmilsom]

From what I understand space junk is a real problem. Both the US and Europe are constantly monitoring more than 10,000 pieces from bolt size upwards. These pose a real danger to spacecraft and the ISS. Dump enough stuff in orbit and eventually travelling away from earth would be like a game of Russian Roulette! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[igorsboss]

Quark to the rescue!<br />