Humans like to imagine Earth as a pristine blue marble surrounded by empty space and glowing stars. In fact, though, human space exploration and industrialization has polluted the area around our planet, with the resulting debris known as space junk. The problem is expected to only grow as the demand for satellites increases with our desire to explore our solar system, but it could get so bad that it could ground space travel indefinitely. What can be done?
An international collaboration of scientists in fields from satellite technology to ocean plastic pollution authored a recent review in the journal One Earth suggesting a strategy for one day restoring Earth’s orbit to its once-uncluttered status: Just use the same methods for cleaning up our oceans.
Because this space junk poses serious risk to astronauts and infrastructure in space — as well as presenting problems on the ground for people using GPS, cell phone data and weather monitoring — scientists are determined to fix this mess. The researchers argue this can be accomplished by forcing the producers of debris to be held financially accountable, developing and enforcing international legislation, creating incentives for companies to minimize orbital debris and stimulating collective scientific cooperation.
"The buildup of debris in these crucial orbits heightens the risk of collisions with operational assets and diminishes the sustainability of these valuable spaces," the authors write. "Therefore, it is crucial to treat the orbital environment as a finite resource that requires protection and conservation."
Perhaps most importantly, they call for the United Nations to get involved in the matter, urging the establishment of a new UN sustainable development goal. The UN creates these goals to establish international benchmarks for protecting the planet, ending poverty and promoting peace. There are already 17 sustainable development goals and the scientists are urging an 18th that would promote space conservation and sustainment of Earth's orbit, particularly to prevent the accumulation of space junk.
These proposals are all based on similar measures adopted to help clean up Earth’s oceans. The authors explain that this approach, though seemingly incongruous, is actually quite sensible.
“There are noticeable differences between marine and orbital environments, both physically and in terms of their chemistry and biology,” the authors write. “However, they share a common problem: the increasing presence of debris across large areas of our planet’s shared spaces.”
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