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4. Space Junk and Debris Removal
36 Plays3 months ago
How do we clean up space? Sharon Parker-Lines, Deputy MD at Astroscale, joins Harvey and Anisha on ECHO 9 to talk about the issue of space debris, as well as the technologies that are helping to capture space junk and make future missions more sustainable ♻️🛰️
Show notes:
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Transcript
00:00:18
Speaker
Not really.
Welcome to Echo 9 and Introduction to Sharon Parker-Lines
00:00:19
Speaker
Well, welcome back everybody to Echo 9. I am up here in low Earth orbit with my lovely co-pilot, Anisha. Hello, hello. And Anisha, i'm I'm getting up on the screen in front of me detecting extra lifeforms on our space station today. Oh, this is exciting. Who have you got in store for us today, half? I think we've got somebody in the airlock, so if I just open up...
00:00:44
Speaker
And oh look, it's it's Sharon. Sharon Parker-Lines. How are you doing, Sharon? I'm great now. I'm out of that airlock. Thanks very much. I thought I was stuck in there forever. Yeah, I hope you weren't in there for too long. I do apologise. No, it's fine. I'm so excited to see you both. How was your journey up to the space station?
00:01:03
Speaker
Well I have to say I get travel sick at the best of times so that was quite a moment for me on that one. I have to say I've got that journey back to look forward to. Oh yeah. Well we'll try and entertain you in the meantime. And I reckon going back is is a little bit more pleasant than going up.
00:01:19
Speaker
Well, that's good to know. Thank you. So ah Sharon, I think maybe it would be good for us to sort of start off um as a little bit of an introduction to to you.
Sharon's Role and AstraScale's Mission
00:01:30
Speaker
So you are deputy managing director of AstraScale. That's correct. Super. So I wondered if you could give us a bit of an introduction to AstraScale. First and foremost, I've got the coolest job in the world working for AstraScale. You know, we're the first company that is focused on in-orbit servicing.
00:01:48
Speaker
um across all orbits. So what does in-orbit servicing mean? So it could be debris removal, it could be removing satellites out of orbit that are no longer working, it could be inspecting satellites, why are they not working and looking for ways to bring them out of orbit. um It could be looking at refuelling or repurposing or life extension,
00:02:13
Speaker
There's so many ways that we can act sustainably going forward, and AstraScale is on the cutting edge, the leading edge of of everything that's possible in space right now. Okay, that's really interesting because when I've heard about AstraScale in the past, it's been mainly in um discussions around orbital debris. um But it's actually so much bigger than that, right?
00:02:36
Speaker
It is, and and it's interesting that you say that because I think one of the reasons that Astroscale has been successful is that in the early days, it managed to capture this hugely technological solution ah that was um being designed for space debris and make it understandable for everybody, right? So we were space sweepers and we've got, because we're a Japanese company, we're we're global, there's 600 of us all over the world, but we still have a little bit of that Japanese roots in everything that we do.
00:03:05
Speaker
And we have these um manga cartoons that are of space sweepers up there with their brooms trying to clear up space debris. But as the technology has developed and as ah as the issues have multiplied, there is more than one solution to being sustainable in space.
00:03:22
Speaker
And um with that, the technology that we're developing is opening the door for all of the rest of these and solutions to be available. I guess all businesses have to have a bit of a plan for, right, what can we do today? But also, things are going to change massively in the future. So what can we do there? Totally agree. And and I think it's so important that you have this longer term vision. And and you know, I don't know about you, but I was blown away by just how much our everyday life relies on space. So why why is it important? Why does anybody care whether these satellites
00:03:57
Speaker
um can be in orbit without being
Importance of Space Technology in Daily Life
00:04:00
Speaker
damaged. But I don't think that many people realise just how important space is to our everyday life. That's such that's such a good point, actually. you know it's not It's not just about being sustainable in space and then trying to be more sustainable in our current manufacturing of spacecraft, but actually you're you're protecting the space assets we have right now, which impact our daily lives. In a sense, you're doing you're doing us all a service by you know enabling us to have those kind of navigation services and you know earth observation stuff and all all of the services that that you know rely on space. I think so. and you know I think a day without space is is a really tough, difficult day. you know People perhaps get that you know your GPS on your on your phone or in your car, your sat-nav,
00:04:50
Speaker
is, you know, people probably get that, but they don't always get the fact that everything they do through their banking, through anything that they pay for anything when they do it on their phone, or even on a credit card, or how the police know where there is, you know, an accident or something, or how does an ambulance get somewhere, all of those sorts of things, space is such a fundamental part of our lives. And if we don't do something now, that is not an option anymore.
00:05:17
Speaker
to do nothing now is not an option because space as we know it just won't exist in the future. No, exactly. And we wouldn't be able to get you two back down. Exactly. Exactly. No, exactly. We need to get home safely after this. Right. So so Sharon, I mean, everyone talks about debris in space and they use it as kind of a buzzword. You know, we need to clean up space and sort the debris problem out. But what is debris? I mean, what is it actually made of and why is it even up there in the first place?
Understanding Space Debris and Its Challenges
00:05:46
Speaker
That's such a great question. You know, since 1957, when Sputnik was the first satellite to go into up into space, if you think of how that um ecosystem has changed over that time, and you've got a number of key players that are now able to um launch more and more satellites, and I listened to your last chat that you had ah talking to the gentleman that was working on launch, and you were exploring how it's cheaper to launch things now. So there is a lot more in space. and And it's such a good question as to what space debris is. If you think about it, and my numbers are from 2022, so they're a little bit out of date. But but in 2022, there was 2,850 satellites in low Earth orbit that were non-commandable. So they've broken down, they were dead on arrival, they've been damaged, they've come to their operating life, and for some reason haven't been deorbited. So that's 2,850 satellites.
00:06:45
Speaker
There's 1,950 upper stage rocket bodies. This is when you launch and your rocket breaks up into pieces um and the upper stage rocket bodies. Those are roughly about three tons.
00:06:59
Speaker
each one of them and the size of a double-decker bus, a London double-decker bus. There's 1,950 of those wow going round. And if you look out of your window, you might see a few going past. oh dear And then from the ground, we can track space debris. So as these things collide or um bits break off or something happens in orbit, and this the the large bits start to break down and degrade and become smaller pieces. And from the Earth,
00:07:29
Speaker
we can track anything above 10 centimeters, and those, there are 36,500 pieces of those um in low Earth orbit. And you say, well, what does it matter? Why does any of that matter? Given that there's 130 million smaller pieces that are smaller than 10 centimeters, there's a very famous picture that you can easily find on the internet of a chip on a windscreen which is ah fleck of paint that hit the International Space Station and chipped the windscreen. that That's what damage these things can do that less than 10 centimetres because they're travelling so fast, 20 times faster than the speed of a bullet from a gun. And you said there's over a million of those? 130 million. 130 million super fast bullets. Wow. Yeah, in no Earth orbit. And and the ah the analogy that we we use
00:08:26
Speaker
is that if you were to buy a car, very expensive car, and fill it with petrol or diesel or electric, and then you drive it until it runs out of fuel, and wherever that car runs out of fuel, you just get out of it, shut the door and walk away. Can you imagine what it would be like if we did that in Earth? But that's how space operates at the moment. Are you just still allowed to do that? Yes.
00:08:53
Speaker
There are some rules and and that's why regulation change is is really important um because at the minute there's nothing that ah forces people to take anything out of orbit. The Americans, the FCC, have brought in a five-year rule and they've started to enforce that but there's no police force going around the um lower sort of bit to make sure that people do this.
00:09:18
Speaker
Yeah, putting a parking ticket in space, isn't it there't it? There's none of that. Yeah. Okay, so how do we deal with that situation?
AstraScale's Approach to Debris Mitigation
00:09:26
Speaker
So from an ester-scale point of view, we we can do nothing. It's not like plastics in the ocean where you can go out with a big net because you can't scoop up just the bits of debris. And there is this um this law that says that even if you're satellite fractures, ah you still own the sovereign pieces. The pieces are still sovereign ownership. so If we were to go and scoop up some bits that Russia thought that they were theirs, then that's an international incident. So scooping up and the bits and pieces in in orbit is is very problematic at the moment. So where AstraScale comes in is that we work with constellation owners. So those people have got a lot of satellites in space.
00:10:08
Speaker
and we aim to remove their satellites when they break down. So we're a bit like the AA in space, if you like. I love that, yes. So we can do it in a number of different ways. ah One is that we put a ah magnetic docking plate on satellites um and there there is one constellation in orbit at the moment that does have this magnetic docking plate on and we've got a capture system and we can go and capture it and bring it down and let it go underneath the space station where it'll burn up.
00:10:37
Speaker
and then we go back up and collect another one. So that's one option. that That helps you keep the orbital highway clear going forward because you can prepare for that. You can put something on your satellite. We can come and pick it up like the AA and off you go. For collecting debris that's been up there a long time or particularly large um objects in low Earth orbit, we can do it with a robotic arm. So we can go and grab hold of, say, the launch adapter ring or something of that sort.
00:11:06
Speaker
And we can bring that down as well in that way. So whilst we can't do anything about the little tiny pieces that are up there at the moment, what we can do is ensure that these larger objects, you know, these 1,950 up a stage or 2,850 broken down satellites can be removed from orbit before they create more problems.
00:11:26
Speaker
So who who actually, I guess, pays you to do that? There is another question it's a big question. I mean, obviously, if you're working with a constellation owner, then obviously they would pay to remove their satellite. We're working with um some customers at the moment that if we can remove one of their satellites out of all, but they can leave their other satellites working for longer.
00:11:51
Speaker
So then the economic benefit there of leaving your other satellites on orbit for a longer time, um it makes the sums match up, but it's it is a big problem. ah What do you mean you can they'll be able to leave another satellite up for longer? So if you have somebody that's acting sustainably and acting and responsibly, and they will have a deorbit plan. So if they have something, and you know, an Earth observation satellite or something,
00:12:19
Speaker
And it has a set period of time. You have enough fuel for, I don't know, 25 years, let's say. At year 20, you probably want to think about bringing it down. So you're ceasing getting revenue from that asset in space because you're having to deorbit it. um But if you know that somebody can come right up to where your satellite is in 25 years time,
00:12:41
Speaker
and bring it out of orbit, you can get an extra five years life out of your asset. Oh, okay. Because you've got more freedom around when you can yes consider it terminated. Yes, you you don't have to do orbit it yourself. So you can use all of your fuel up.
00:12:59
Speaker
ah i using the payload that it needs to do because somebody will come and sweep it up and take it away. Right. Okay. okay So so and I guess that's the the main incentive then for for people. It is. and and it's And depending on how congested your orbit is, if you've got a broken down satellite in your fixed orbit, every time you go go around it, which is every 90 minutes,
00:13:26
Speaker
you will have to maneuver your way out of the way so that you don't hit it. So you're actually burning up more fuel to it to go around your broken down object. If you think about the M25 and something broken down in the outside lane, it's all about fuel.
00:13:40
Speaker
yeah and so So here we are on a space station. like you Like you say, we look out the window, we can see these big bits flying past and these micro pieces. What are the risks, I guess? You said earlier on, a ah fleck of paint creating ah a crack in a windscreen. yeah I'm sure they don't call them windscreens, but I take my car analogy to the max. you know I know it's good. It's good, easy to understand. yeah What can we do to mitigate you know a collision? There are a number of things. Obviously, we can observe objects larger than 10 centimeters. So you will be notified of a collision avoidance maneuver. And we call them CAMs because in the space industry, we obviously like to take everything down to as many acronyms as we can. um And since 2020, there's been a three times increase in collision avoidance maneuvers. So you know that is
00:14:36
Speaker
an indication that a, collision avoidance maneuvers work, but also that it is getting more and more congested. And if I give you an example, well, I'll come right out and say it. The missions conducted an anti-satellite testing capability. I think it was in 2021, but where they did it, they did it so close to the International Space Station.
00:14:59
Speaker
that the astronauts on board at the time were woken up and had to go into ah an emergency emergency evacuation model. it was I think it was the the craft that had brought them there in the first time and strapped themselves in because they were worried that they wouldn't be able to move the International Space Station quickly enough so that it wasn't caught up in this debris cloud. Oh wow, that's insane. I hope you have propulsion on your Yeah, of course. i've got We've got it all, Sharon. Don't worry. it I think we're faster as well. We're more modern than the ISS, so minimal. But it doesn't, but it like you say, it's all about fuel. And I guess you're using more fuel. It gets more expensive. Yeah, absolutely. It's so expensive every time they fire up the International Space Station. And Tim Peake once said at an event that we were at that nothing else worried him apart from space debris on his missions.
00:15:53
Speaker
um And he said that there are certain times of night when the International Space Station is quiet, when everybody's sleeping, ah you can hear things pinging on the outside shell of the International Space Station all night. That's terrifying. Yes. So, yeah, as long as you guys can maneuver,
00:16:13
Speaker
ah and that you've got some fairly substantial windscreen and panels, I think we'll be safe. but But I'd be really worried about these smaller pieces that I'm assuming you can't track something like the size of a fleck of paint. No, you can't. Not at the moment. No, you can't. So there's a very real risk that a catastrophe could strike at any moment. Is that fair to say? I think i think it's a bit of the
The Threat of Kessler Syndrome
00:16:40
Speaker
unknown.
00:16:40
Speaker
there is something called the Kessler syndrome. So that's where you have a big object and it breaks up into hundreds of pieces and then they hit something else, they hit something else, they hit something else, they hit something else. So you have this sort of chain of catastrophic collisions in orbit. And there is there is some people that would say that the Kessler syndrome and is is virtually there in some orbits. So it it is it is a big problem.
00:17:10
Speaker
And it's only, you know, the worry is that we have to wait for a catastrophic event before we galvanize people to start acting differently.
Future of Space Sustainability
00:17:19
Speaker
and And to be clear, we're not saying that, you know, certainly Asher's Girl's standpoint is not stopping people launching things into space. We're just saying that there's a more sustainable way of doing it.
00:17:31
Speaker
so So you mentioned um some of the the challenges right now that we face, some of them including things like regulation. But how do you see that changing over time? I mean, where are we going in the future? Are like are we going to open different challenges going forward? um What technologies are going to help us kind of unlock that? So now I've depressed you, how do I get you out of depression? Well, no, I want to know what future what the future holds and and you know how real we are to to getting there.
00:18:00
Speaker
OK, so i I think there is real momentum. You know, it's not all doom and gloom. um There are lots of conversations taking ah place all over the world. The UN is involved and we're talking to UK, to space agencies. We're talking across the board and people are engaged in those conversations. And that's really great because five years ago, nobody else was having we're having these conversations.
00:18:28
Speaker
So at least collectively, we're all looking forward to to what the future is. I think similarly to Astroscale, we've got three core pillars on our Astroscale Foundation. One is the business case. The second one is regulation and policy change. And the third one is technology. And the that they're all as challenging as each other. The technology, you know we've got teams, we've got 200 people here looking at the technology. And some of the things that we're developing, and we've talked a little bit about there's something called RPO, which is close proximity, rendezvous, proximity and operations. And this is really unique. um Not many people can do this. And um we've got a couple of live missions at the moment, which are demonstrating some amazing things. um But this is where you, you know, so when you're trying to get a satellite and it's damaged, it could be tumbling, it could be tumbling and twisting and turning.
00:19:26
Speaker
And to be able to catch that safely, you've got to match that tumble rate, you've got to dance with the satellite, and then be able to grab hold of it safely so you don't make any more debris. So all of that, you know we're demonstrating that capability right now. We've talked about sustainability on build. At the minute, low Earth orbit satellites are built for 10 years maximum, probably, most of them a lot less.
00:19:51
Speaker
So how can we build them so that they can last longer? So we're not constantly launching new things in space. ah We can talk about refueling them. We can talk about um moving things around to different locations to do different jobs. There's all sorts of things that we can be doing.
00:20:10
Speaker
hu You mentioned earlier that we could get to the point where we have this kind of docking station or kind of capability in space where we bring old satellites and break them up and reuse them, recycle them. I mean, do you think that that's on the roadmap and and if so, kind of how far are we from from getting to that? I think I probably will have retired by then. m But i think you know I think it has to be It has to be a reality. If you think of all the exploration that we're trying to do, you know the desire to go to the moon, to go beyond the moon, yeah you know you you need refueling, you need your AA service to go with you, really. You need all of the capabilities that we're developing now to be able to kick on and go further. And I think if you look at what's needed to go Cislunar, it will force, because because there'll be money to be made out of it, unfortunately, it will force the technology
00:21:07
Speaker
because people want to push on to the next frontier. And I think that will help um accelerate the technological development needed to to be sustainable. So I guess when when you're moving from LEO to to further out, I mean, how does the how does the debris environment change? So obviously there are a lot more satellites in low Earth orbit. It's cheaper to get to. You can launch smaller satellites.
00:21:33
Speaker
But things in there, in that orbit, once they're finished with and once they're no longer commandable, can take several years to decades to centuries to come down, depending on how high they are and how heavy they are. And then you've got what's called MIO and anything left up there is permanent. And that's a lesser dense um environment. There's not a lot of people and that put things in MIO. Some of DS observation stuff is is in MIO.
00:22:02
Speaker
And then you go out to what's called the geostationary um belt, which is at 36,000 kilometres and above. um And that those satellites move around the Earth at the same time as the Earth. So that's what gives you you GPS. That's what stays above you all the time. And these are massive. These are really big ah satellites. And these cost a lot to build and cost a lot to get up there.
Recycling Stations and Sustainable Practices in Space
00:22:27
Speaker
and then What nobody seems to be talking about at the moment is when they come to the end of life, they push them out into a graveyard orbit. hu And surely this is going to cause a problem at some point when we want to go further. How many satellites have we pushed out into a graveyard? I don't know what the answer is to that.
00:22:44
Speaker
but But it's a long way to deorbit them, right? Yes. Bring them back from GEO. Yes, absolutely. And so that to me is where you have your life extension where somebody goes and attaches to the side of you and keeps you there a bit longer. Or whether those are the first ones that you take to your recycling station and strip out all the bits that can be reused or harmful to coming back into the earth's atmosphere. A recycling center in space. Yes. That could be quite handy out there.
00:23:13
Speaker
Yeah, a recycling centre. that You have to come and and I don't know whether it's manned or whether it's done with robots. I don't know. I think it's probably robots, but I think that's a shame. I like the idea of working on a recycling station in geostationary orbit.
The Astra Carta and Sustainable Space Exploration
00:23:31
Speaker
Well, you do it first and then tell us how you get on. and but Given my travel sickness coming to you guys today, I don't think I can go any further out. It's a long way, I know. Yeah.
00:23:44
Speaker
and And then I guess as we continue exploring, you know, you mentioned missions to the moon, Mars. I mean, these same issues are going to present themselves around those bodies if we don't get our acts together and start thinking about sustainable orbits on on other bodies as well, right? You're exactly right. Absolutely. And we've been doing some work around the Astra Carta, which is um King Charles's vision ah he He launched the Terracotta, which was all about his sustainable views on on how we should be managing planet Earth. And a couple of years ago, he after a visit to Astrascale, I don't know whether that was the tipping point, but I'd like to think it was, after a visit to Astrascale, he launched the Astracotta. And um a lot of that focuses on how we can be sustainable, but also looking at how we treat the planets that we're going to discover in a sustainable way.
00:24:42
Speaker
building on what we've learned both from from on earth and from this problem that we're facing now so that hopefully we don't make the same mistakes going forward. That's awesome. The Astra Carta. Is it a physical document? Yes, it is. Oh, nice. is where Is the Magna Carta like... What is that? Is it on like papyrus or something? or i don't I don't know. If it's any help, the Astra Carta was on paper or digital form. Yeah, OK. OK. And so what people people could sign up to that? Will companies sign up to that and say, and we agree with those principles? Yes, there there are. I think there's either 10 or 12 principles. I can't remember now. um But anybody who's remotely interested, I urge you to go and have a look at it because it it is far, far reaching. It does cross an awful lot um of future um decisions that can be made.
00:25:37
Speaker
um And there's some some work going on around promoting that at the moment. Cool. I will ah put a link to it actually in the show notes for anybody who's interested. I ah tell you what I will send you to put in the show notes. um We've done an inspection mission really recently around a three-ton upper stage rocket body. um And we've got within 50 metres of this thing. In fact, we've got a lot closer than that now.
00:26:05
Speaker
And we've flown around it three times on three different axis and we've got like a time hop and it's the coolest video ever, but it it just shows. what ah an upper stage rocket body is just hanging around in low Earth orbit. okay it's there it's It's the coolest thing ever. Oh, wow. Okay. And so what what did you say? is You've done an inspection mission? Yes. Is that just to look at it and yes track it, see if you can rendezvous with it or put yourself in different positions around it? So this this mission, so this is a Japanese space agency, JAXA, um working with Astroscale, our sister company in in Japan.
00:26:45
Speaker
on a mission mission called Adros J, which is active debris removal by Astroscale Japan. um And what's that's done is it's ah it launched in February and it's got really close to an upper stage rocket body that JAXA launched ah quite some years ago. um And it's flown round at three different ways and we've um managed to film it and and we've got the video footage of it.
00:27:13
Speaker
And you can just see how this is just an upper stage rocket body that is just in low Earth orbit. It's uncontrollable. You can't move it. You can't avoid anything. Anything that gets in its path has to get out of its path. It can't move at all. um And then the next mission, which JAXA has um signed Astroscale up to do, is to go up with a robotic arm and remove this object from orbit and bring it down in a controlled fashion.
00:27:41
Speaker
Right. Okay. So rendezvous with it, um, grab it and then deorbit it. Yep. Right. yeah And then burn up. Which, ah no, this is too big to burn up. This will have to be a controlled re-entry. But hopefully, you'll be able to watch it out of the windscreen. Yes. Exactly, exactly. but That's a great a great story there, because you said it's JAXA who's paying for this for the and inspection mission, but also it's their launcher
Japan's Leadership in Responsible Space Usage
00:28:10
Speaker
that's left up there. So they're going back and realising, actually, you know we need to go and tidy up what we've left up there. That's that's you know really taking responsibility for something that they've done a long time ago.
00:28:20
Speaker
so that they can continue to use space in an ethical but sustainable manner. I agree. The the Japanese are very forward looking on this um and it you know it is really important to them to to be able to remove these things from orbit. yeah so How important is sort robotics and autonomous robotics to the future of sustainability? so Without being too ah technical,
00:28:50
Speaker
um no Our satellites have to be autonomous for quite a bit of the time. The amount of maneuvers that we need to do when we're rendezvousing with another satellite means that it has to be completely autonomous at that point. The other thing as well, as you mentioned with your robotics, because you're catching on to something that hasn't been prepared for you to catch on to it, your robotic arm, so the end bit that's your essentially your hand, has to close like fingers on a hand It has to close in a controlled way because there's no hard edge or no hook for it to hook onto. It has to grab something in the same way as your hand would grab something so that you make sure you've got a secure contact with it. And then the really clever thing is our satellite that's doing the collection then has to realize that its entire center of gravity has changed because you're relying on our onboard computer to realize that, hang on a minute, we're twice as big or, you know, we just
00:29:49
Speaker
attached to something that's enormous, and then it has to adapt its onboard software so that it can it doesn't go into a spin as well. So you don't have two objects spinning at the same time. It's it's really clever. Yeah, that's so, um I didn't even think about that actually. you know If you're capturing something that's tumbling, you have to stop yourself from you know rolling down that hill as well. That's so yeah definitely a clever piece of tech right there. When I came into space four years ago, knowing nothing,
00:30:19
Speaker
and I've learned so much in in a short period of time, but it's it's just the space mechanics and the orbital dynamics and everything else is just so complex that your mind really struggles to to understand. Even just orbit raising and lowering can take years. yeah And that I just wasn't ready for that.
00:30:40
Speaker
I thought you'd be like changing the lane on the motorway again, you know that you would be able to do it, but it it can take years to get to something. It's crazy, isn't it? It's it's hard to even understand or grasp ah orbital mechanics. They say it's not rocket science for a reason, right? like Absolutely, absolutely. but look You know, it's not all doom and gloom. um We are addressing the problem um and space is such an important part of our everyday life that I am fully confident that we will act sustainably and that space will be there for us for future generations.
Ensuring a Sustainable Future in Space
00:31:24
Speaker
And that's something that we're really intent on being a part of.
00:31:28
Speaker
and look at the amazing technological innovation. It's one of the things that I love about working in the space industry is the amazing things people are doing to radically change our lives or radically even just change the space sector have such amazing implications for future generations and future space exploration. It's it's such an exciting time to be working in this industry.
00:31:50
Speaker
It is. I couldn't agree more. Well, thank you very much, Sharon. Really appreciate you ah taking the trip all the way up here to Echo 9 today. I hope you've had a ah fun time. I have. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you. We wish you a very safe journey back to Earth. Thank you. and and yeah Good luck getting through the yeah cloud of debris that I can see coming. I'll take you up on the on the um suggestion that going back doesn't make me as travel sick as Cumming did. Yes, good luck. thanks sharon Thank you. Bye.
00:32:27
Speaker
So, Anisha, what do you think of that? I mean, I didn't realise how big the problem is, but also I think Sharon was so good at giving us the solutions. I think i have my my faith is definitely in in Sharon leading leading the charge on this one. So I mentioned that when I've heard about AstraScale in the past, it's been in conversations about orbital debris.
00:32:49
Speaker
And everything I sort of hear about this problem of pieces of space junk spinning around the earth, colliding with each other, it always seems very scary. And and of course it is, you know it's it's a serious problem, but it is really interesting to hear about what the solutions are and that that you know change is coming and people are taking the issue seriously.
00:33:15
Speaker
And God, it's just so cool to think that there's going to be recycling centres in all of it. I know. I mean, you you know, I'm a fan of sci-fi films and so, you know, anything that we're doing to get us on track to to Star Trek or Star Wars, i'm I'm so on board. So I'll be waiting for that recycling centre in space to to open for sure. Yeah, will you visit it with me? Yes, sure. I'm not sure how I feel about going through junk, though, but I'll be there.
00:33:43
Speaker
I'm not sure if I'll be doing the recycling, but I'd like to see it. Well, we often mention, like, you don't really do anything. do You don't really work. it's it's me ah It's me. I'll be the one to sifting through all of the junk. You'll just you'll just be there on your phone or something. I'll be supervising. um yeah is think Yeah, exactly.
00:34:05
Speaker
ah Exactly. thanks um to Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks again to everybody for joining us as we, uh, you know, I'm really enjoying this niche, like you and I going on this little adventure, meeting all these different people, learning a bit about space. And I love the fact that I can just ask all of the ridiculous questions I've always thought about, but never, never had the chance to ask someone. So yeah, it's not only for our viewers, but I think carve we're we're on this journey, you know, learning together and understanding.
00:34:35
Speaker
how we can how we can improve our sector and and build on the incredible capabilities that it's got. Definitely. God, I feel so lucky to be able to meet these people, chat with them, bring them up onto Echo 9. It's great. What a great sector. Join the space sector. That's our recruitment drive. I can tick that box, recruitment, done.
00:34:59
Speaker
OK, well, um I think that's probably all we've got time for today. um So thank you very much to everybody for for for listening in. i'm Looking down at that beautiful planet Earth now, um wishing you all a very pleasant day or night, whatever it is, wherever you are. I don't want to do the blue marble thing again. I'm getting tired of it. Are you? Why? I think it's i think you you you need a signature sign off. Do I? All right. Yeah, it's cute. It's cute.
00:35:27
Speaker
And to everybody down there on that big blue marble, stay tuned. There we go. I'll put it in just for you. Thanks.