this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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Sci-fi inspired tractor beams are real, and could solve a major space junk problem (www.livescience.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/space
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[โ€“] Cocodapuf 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Now the only reason this is a terrible idea is that it requires first rendezvousing with a spacecraft every time you want to deorbit it. You'll have the propellent to do this what, 2 or 3 times for every garbage collection spacecraft launched? That's one enormous cost...

[โ€“] bouh 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's probably not the case. We have efficient thrusters now. And the spacecraft will stay on the same orbit all its life.

[โ€“] Cocodapuf 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, we have hall effect thrusters, but it doesn't really matter, the spacecraft still needs to push the mass of both spacecrafts a pretty significant distance and then return to the orbit of was at.

That's just a lot of work.

I'll admit, that using this for cleaning up geostationary orbit is more viable that leo, but it's still questionable how long this will actually be useful.