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crisptapwater t1_j6llh9n wrote

Might be out of my league here. But could you get the space junk and transport it to the moon to possibly recycle it for moon base operations? The idea of bringing it back in the atmosphere is out of question but maybe transport it for other uses somewhere where it won’t do much damage.

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OrganicDroid t1_j6lszlm wrote

That’s like saying, “why don’t I drive 100 miles to the nearest recycling center to recycle my cardboard box, instead of burning my cardboard box in my backyard fire pit?”

I.e. moon is still really far away and difficult to get to

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AlpineCorbett t1_j6lu49x wrote

The moon is really, really far away. By comparison these are within arms reach.

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crisptapwater t1_j6luc32 wrote

Again out of my league but collection of junk would take place in orbit/outside orbit then moved to a transport vessel that could get scooped before the trip out to the moon?

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AlpineCorbett t1_j6lvb3k wrote

Getting from orbit to the moon is many magnitudes more difficult than getting from orbit back to earth.

If we were able to create such a vessel, bringing it back to earth would be so much more efficient.

The highest orbits are about 23,000 miles above our planet. With the moon being 238,900 miles away on average. And unfortunately we are nowhere near being able to design such a craft. Things in orbit are not just sitting at a consistent speed that we could vacuum up by moving slightly faster.

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ChefExellence t1_j6mjafs wrote

I'll add to his comparison. It's like taking widely scattered of wood chips from your expensive garden to the south pole, where you plan to build your own reprocessing facility to turn the chips into chipboard to build your Antarctic base.

It's such a huge amount of effort for so little gain

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