2 ways to reduce orbital debris: get rid of stuff that's already there, and generate less. This law seems to me like it would tackle both.

More stringent deorbiting standards and better methods for satellites to commit sudoku will reduce the amount of satellites that become debris.

But that doesn't change the fact that the majority of debris in orbit today comes from 2 sources: the Chinese ASAT test and leaky Soviet nuclear reactors. The proposed ASAT test ban helps that from being an issue, but you still need a way to clean up the existing debris (other than waiting decades or centuries)

There is a 3rd method already being implemented,[1] though it is enhanced by your second method. If no more satellites were put in orbit, eventually there would be no satellites (or space junk) in orbit.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_decay

Unfortunately I don't think it's practical to wait thousands-millions of years for everything to decay

How about 150 years? Because due to orbital decay, that is about how long it would take for everything to fall out of orbit. If there is a Kessler Syndrome, depending on its effect at higher orbits, it might take a few hundred more years, but definitely definitely not billions of years.

How on earth would a leaky Soviet reactor create orbital debris?

Commenter is probably referring to this incident[1] where a sodium-cooled nuclear reactor on a Soviet satellite ended up spraying a bunch of small beads of sodium into Earth orbit. The number and density of the beads makes them a long-lived hazard.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954

There's a few dozen nuclear powered RORSATS. When their start leaking (due to micrometeorite strikes or just wear & tear), they leak out globs of coolant that coagulate together. Each satellite has a few hundred points of coolant, which can make a LOT of 1cm across globs (or larger globs, or droplets that are too small to detect). I don't have a paper handy, but IIRC these droplets were the #1 source of space junk up until the 2007 antisatellite weapon test

e: Paper here, https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.27...

Thanks, I’ll read it.

I think you mean seppuku, not sudoku. :)

I said the said thing at first but learned it's an online meme :)

> Other Washington companies like SpaceX, Amazon’s Kuiper Systems, and Stoke Space Technologies are also looking for new ways to reduce debris from accumulating in space in the first place or have been threatened by debris.

Good news! Concurrent efforts can work concurrently! Reducing future debris is already an area of active work.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32793236 <- Posted two days ago.

There have been moves to get nations to sign on to a ban on antisatellite weapons. The largest recent contributions to space debris have been tests of antisatellite weapon systems. So that is at least being attempted, but it is a separate track based mostly on foreign relations.

> encourage agencies and other countries to develop standards about debris...

> Everything except "generate less debris".

What else would the standards be about?

If you've looked at our environmental efforts over the last 50 years. The trends should be pretty obvious :-) The scam that is recycling exists as an industry mostly to allay the fear of the populace, not address the issue. It's a nice side benefit that sometimes companies can save on costs for certain products.

This recent article actually discusses reducing debris more quickly. [1] Are you suggesting fewer launches?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32793236