Imagine being pelted with a 10-centimetre chunk of metal travelling at speeds in excess of 28,000kph. Now, imagine that you are in the vacuum of space and if that bit of space junk pierces your hull, you're in for an uncomfortable moment indeed.
Just such considerations have increasingly troubled what should be routine trips to the International Space Station and satellite launches (and such endeavours have become almost routine). There are an estimated 16,000 metal objects larger than 10 centimetres in diameter orbiting the Earth, and 50,000 if the smaller bits are counted as well.
Each piece of space detritus has its own interesting back story, from depleted rocket stages to parts shorn off satellites to the debris created by space collisions. It is future collisions, however, that have us riveted.
The solution proposed by the Swiss Space Center is decidedly prosaic: a giant vacuum cleaner in the sky. Researchers are building "CleanSpace One", the first of a network of satellites in orbit designed to collect space junk and then incinerate it in Earth's atmosphere. The prototype model is expected to cost about 10 million Swiss francs (Dh40 million).
Humanity reaches for the skies out of an innate curiosity and the ambition to excel. And, now it seems, that drive is complemented by a sense of tidiness as well.
