Quote from: Talking_Muffin;476831Wait. That's actually pretty funny.

No, they're right, several of my posts lately have been kind of stupid.  My apologies for disrupting the thread.

On a serious note, does this stuff pose any danger to stuff on the ground, or just other stuff in space?

Quote from: Technomancer;476955On a serious note, does this stuff pose any danger to stuff on the ground, or just other stuff in space?

If we let it get out of hand, it could seriously damage future economies because we need space science to push tech limits. However, everything that is considered space junk will burn up when it reenters the atmosphere.  The problem is that the junk is sitting in orbits where it won't reenter for decades or centuries on its own.

You gotta start with a pretty sizeable chunk to even become a tiny meteorite by the time it hits the ground. But "raining space junk" is a good Gamma World style environmental hazard.

However for my Waste World game, unbeknownst to most inhabitants of the world, there were factions in the greater galaxy who wanted to either "rescue" them or come steal from WW and there were often massive space battles above them and that's why huge chunks would occasionally fall to the surface.

Quote from: Technomancer;476955No, they're right, several of my posts lately have been kind of stupid.  My apologies for disrupting the thread.

On a serious note, does this stuff pose any danger to stuff on the ground, or just other stuff in space?

In any case, it was funny. I sometimes read a post or thread title and the first thing that comes to mind is a joke, so I'm cool with it. I guess it's all about having a good mix of jokes and serious discussion.

I found it funny, but then I'm a sarky fucker.

Quote from: Silverlion;476843There is an anime/manga series focused on cleaning up Earth's orbit. Its actually pretty fun hard-science for the most part. I wish I could remember the name.


Oh yeah: Planetes.

Silverlion and Beeber are dead on about Planetes. An excellent sci-fi anime which stays surprisingly grounded in hard science fiction and steers clear of the 'psychic teenager attendee of a girl school and giant robot pilot' syndrome.

Also, I was watching an episode of QI and they mentioned that most of the debris in orbit around earth is also coated in a fine film of human waste. Not really a central point to the thread, I know, it's just until I heard it I had never thought of the reality of 'flushing' human waste into space.

In RIFTS, space is blocked out by a series of killer satellites in orbit around the planet.  In my campaign, the Robotech Alliance is very interested in finding out what's up there, and they're working on a plan to be able to get someone up there survivably.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Silverlion;476843There is an anime/manga series focused on cleaning up Earth's orbit. Its actually pretty fun hard-science for the most part. I wish I could remember the name.

Oh yeah: Planetes.

Sold.

Space junkers was a pretty common thing in my Traveller campaigns - usually you'd have a company in a subsector, based on some crapsack world, which handled space debris removal, junked old starships, and the like. Awesome source of part-time jobs for travellers with space skills.

It called the Kessler Syndrome.

Space debris is something that needs to be controlled and measure have been taken particularly for geosynchronous orbit. But it is unlikely to be truly catastrophic due to the volume of space around the earth.

Quote from: estar;952906It called the Kessler Syndrome.

Space debris is something that needs to be controlled and measure have been taken particularly for geosynchronous orbit. But it is unlikely to be truly catastrophic due to the volume of space around the earth.

Theres been a number of collisions of satellites. Space may be big. But the space around earth where good orbits are set isnt. And wasnt it in 2009 that some debris took out a really expensive commsat? So far we havent had anything hit a manned vessel... so far...

As for a setting. Could do that in Star Frontiers due to the amount of battle debris all over the place. After battle cleanup would be a possible major undertaking considering the size and potential danger of some of the debris. Live ordinance and more importantly ship drives packed with radioactive fuel.