[X] My Assistant

[ElkGroveDan]

How about sending "walls" of aerogel around Earth to collect small debris like Stardust did,

That's a good idea, but it wouldn't need to be aerogel. Remember, the aerogel was used for it's capacity to capture the impactors without deforming the particles. I would guess that a denser substance could be used that would operate at a higher efficiency. Some kind of self-inflating, self-curing foam perhaps that operates on the same principle as spray-foam insulation you can buy at the hardware store. Such a system would save on volume for the initial orbital placement.

I'm imagining a succession of nested nets or cones shaped like meterological windsocks that could be unfurled, with layers of something like aerogel or a silicate based foam between the layers.

[tasp]

Perhaps a laser on the space station could be used to ablate small amounts of material from the leading surfaces of undesired orbiting materials and speed up the decay of their orbits.

Letting space command track the results would allow items to be preferentially dropped in the Pacific and would also avoid collisions with useful assets.

{In the extremely unlikely event no one else has thought of this, please PM me for my address to send the royalty checks. }

[Bob Shaw]

I like this one...NASA could charge people to take shots at debris in space...of course, they'd have to program it so it wouldn't allow anyone to shoot the non-debris (like ISS).

The ISS isn't debris? Damn, there I was, collecting AA batteries and tinfoil for the mirrror...

Bob Shaw

[ugordan]

Solution 4: Powerful Laser Cannon (in space or on Earth with adaptive optics) recycled from "star wars" project, vaporizing the debris like in a videogame.

If you were to put a giant laser in space, how would you prevent whoever controlled it from pointing the thing at Earthly objects of interest? A thing like that would immediately be perceived as a weapon. Thus forcing other countries to launch their own lasers for "space junk disposal" purposes.
Inevitable militarisation of space, if you ask me. That thing would surely serve a purpose as an anti-ICBM shield well before being used for benign purposes of garbage cleanup.

[dilo]

For sure, ugo!
Correct if I'm wrong, initial USA "star wars" plans included such kind of stuff and also space based X-ray cannons powered by nuclear bombs... (based on your avatar, you should know this matter! )

[ljk4-1]

Watch the Skies… For Junk

As head of NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office, Nicholas L. Johnson keeps tabs on deadly flying garbage, aka space junk.

By Amos Kenigsberg

June 05, 2006 | Astronomy & Physics

http://www.discover.com/web-exclusives/spacejunk/

How much junk is out there?

For things bigger than 10 centimeters, there are about 8,000. Things that are larger than 1cm, we're talking a few hundred thousand. If you're talking things larger 1mm, we're talking a hundred million.

[ljk4-1]

GEO debris and interplanetary dust: fluxes and charging behavior

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0609341

[ljk4-1]

100,000 Pieces Of Trash In Space Poses No Shortage Of Risks

http://www.spacemart.com/reports/100000_Pi..._Risks_999.html