Private Space Enterprise and Space Junk - Dumpa Truck

There’s husbandry in heaven;

Their candles are all out

Shakespeare, Macbeth, II, 1

The successful launch and recovery of a reusable space vehicle by CEO Musk owned Space X, first ever for private company, complete with a wheel of cheese intact and not molten (a good sign!) was for me a day I shall cherish, as I lived to see history.

Full press court details in the article “Space breakthrough - Houston, the Dragon has landed”, published December 11, 2010, 3:48PM, HOUSTON CHRONICLE as well as in my blog article entitled “NASA and Space X - Little House on the Prairie”. Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon Capsule are no mere fanciful names for Space X CEO Elon Musk, Venture Capitalist and owner of PayPal.

They are a signal of the major shifts taking place in Washington that are leading to the opening up of the expensive “heavy lifting” involved in the business of space i.e. Satellites, Cargo and Astronauts as first brought to light in my blog article entitled “Alternative Energy and the Ion Drive Engine – Star Trek and Andromeda”.

NASA (National Aeronautical space Administration) will be left to do its primary function, which is Space Exploration, with quite a mission schedule set before them, also explained in my blog article entitled “Alternative Energy and Daedelus - Avatar and Planet Gliese 581g Next Door ”.

Private Sector involvement in space is coming of age as the article so rightly chronicles the obvious signs as stated in the article “Private Companies taking over orbital space business from NASA”, published Friday December 24, 2010 10:20 am ET by JEFFREY KLUGER, Yahoo! News. So why am I getting a sense of the anticlimactic from NASA? Surely, the doubters have all been proven wrong with the cheese successful return?

NASA has a full schedule ahead of them. First ever probe to visit the Sun, appropriately and quaintly named Solar Probe Plus comes readily to mind as stated in the article “NASA planning mission to visit the Sun”, published September 2, 2010 4:12 PM PDT by Charles Cooper, CNET News - Cutting Edge.

This is confirmed in the article “NASA aims to plunge Car-sized probe into the Sun”, published Thursday September 2, 2010 9:30 pm ET, by SPACE.com, Yahoo! News. A technical feat of engineering worth about US$180 million, it is an indication of the scaled down budget that NASA will have to contend.

Yet the necessary science that justifies NASA’s existence must continue. This however will be mad more difficult as previous satellites and other non-functional debris have been left in orbit around the Earth as stated in the article “Space junk Rivals Weapons as a major Threat”, published Thursday December 23, 2010 3:30 pm ET by SPACE.com, Yahoo! News.

It is not only a threat to Earth’s inhabitants if pieces survive re-entry but also places future missions into space in jeopardy. Already the ISS (international Space Station) has been put in harms way, barely missing a flying piece of space junk as stated in the article “Space station dodges piece of old NASA satellite’, published Tuesday October 26, 2010 12:11 pm ET By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer, Yahoo! News.

 

Thus the obvious is clear. The US Government needs to put out a bid to one of the “space cowboys” jockeying for a piece of the lucrative space action to basically come up with a feasible way of removing the garbage now floating in orbit. Effectively a Dumpa Truck as per the song by Vybz Kartel, needs to be designed by theirs contractor chosen via a US Government tender process to clean up and possibly bring back down some of the junk.

This is because firing missiles only makes the problems worse, turning floating debris into millions of pieces of high speed projectiles that can destroy other satellites and space vehicles. Short and sweet, folks, short and sweet. Just remember Jamaica for a possible space station as per my blog article entitled “Alternative Energy ands Virgin Intergalactic - District 9”.