Japan Developing Wooden Satellites To Cut Space Junk (bbc.co.uk) 165
Joe2020 shares a report: A Japanese company and Kyoto University have joined forces to develop what they hope will be the world's first satellites made out of wood by 2023. Sumitomo Forestry said it has started research on tree growth and the use of wood materials in space. The partnership will begin experimenting with different types of wood in extreme environments on Earth. Space junk is becoming an increasing problem as more satellites are launched into the atmosphere. Wooden satellites would burn up without releasing harmful substances into the atmosphere or raining debris on the ground when they plunge back to Earth. "We are very concerned with the fact that all the satellites which re-enter the Earth's atmosphere burn and create tiny alumina particles which will float in the upper atmosphere for many years," Takao Doi, a professor at Kyoto University and Japanese astronaut, told the BBC. "Eventually it will affect the environment of the Earth. The next stage will be developing the engineering model of the satellite, then we will manufacture the flight model."
Wha? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wha? (Score:5, Insightful)
Changing some sat components to wood isn't going to make any difference to air quality.
It will if everyone does it. That's not going to happen soon, but could happen someday. And this could be the groundwork for that. Why are you anti-progress? This may not even pan out, but at least we'll learn something.
Progress (Score:5, Interesting)
Why are you anti-progress? This may not even pan out, but at least we'll learn something.
Do they have any evidence that wood ash would be less harmful than bits of aluminum? It may cause *more* pollution. It's an interesting idea, but it's not automatically better than what exists simply because it's more "natural."
Re:Progress (Score:4)
I'm not sure why people are only focussing on the satellite's end of life.
While obviously some components of these satellites will continue being manufactured substances (metals, ceramics, etc.), making a satellite largely out of wood potentially cuts down the environmental impact of the manufacture as well.
Now, practically speaking, that big rocket it's riding up on has way, WAY more environmental impact than the satellite does. But, still, it makes sense to investigate options towards ameliorating the environmental impacts of our activities whenever possible.
Re:Progress (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, practically speaking, that big rocket it's riding up on has way, WAY more environmental impact than the satellite does. But, still, it makes sense to investigate options towards ameliorating the environmental impacts of our activities whenever possible.
Yeah, I was about to say this. For all mid-term launch solutions, the environmental impact of getting a pound of anything to low earth orbit far outweighs the environmental impact of whatever's up there, unless we're talking about something truly poisonous or radioactive. Replacing aluminum and titanium constructs with heritage oak panels in a situation where every ounce counts is not a win.
It's still nifty, and it's cool as a form of basic research that others may get ideas from, but it's going to be a long time until payoff.
Research (Score:3)
making a satellite largely out of wood potentially cuts down the environmental impact of the manufacture as well.
Now, practically speaking, that big rocket it's riding up on has way, WAY more environmental impact than the satellite does.
Then, wouldn't it make more sense to put more research into figuring out how to make rocket fuel more environmentally friendly? You only have so many resources to do research, why wouldn't you focus on areas that would provide the largest gain for the amount of research to be put in?
Re: (Score:3)
Starship‘s Methalox propellant could be synthesized from air. So it would be pretty CO2 neutral to launch a starship to orbit. That is if you don‘t use Methane from fossil sources, which is currently the cheapest way.
Re: (Score:3)
Really this is just typical of Japans 1990s thinking, trapped in a era, by fear of everything that happened before.
Modular design for anything going into space, so that at EOL (design or accident or bad production), it can be dismantled and used as spare parts or to make something else.
It costs a lot to get up there and should be designed for maximum use and reuse. Big space station, much bigger than the current, rotating for semblance of gravity, used to collected space debris and make other stuff from t
Re: (Score:3)
Those are some weird stereotypes, Japanese hardly make anything from used spare parts, what an odd notion. Would a typical Japanese person even accept an item made from used parts? Only if it was an art piece of some sort, and it would have to be from a famous artist for them to "get away with" it.
Re: (Score:2)
Wood ash is carbon neutral, at least as far as the material goes. Aluminium needs a lot more processing to be usable too.
Japan has found lots of modern uses for old tech, like origami packaging that lets them use cardboard instead of plastic.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not just wood ash.
I suspect that they are going to use a lot of epoxy to glue this together and perhaps also vacuum infused into the wood to give it strength. It epoxy more environmentally friendly than the traditional materials?
Making the problem worse (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Why are you anti-progress?"
Why are you so quick to judge?
Just because it makes you warm and fuzzy doesn't make it immune to skepticism. It's reasonable to question the efficacy of keeping alumina from the outer atmosphere, although there's no evidence that it's harmful. In fact, it seems unlikely that it would have any impact:
[Alumina] [britannica.com]: "These products exhibit the properties for which alumina is well known, including low electric conductivity, resistance to chemical attack, high strength, extreme hardness (9 on the Mohs hardness sca
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Resistant to chemical attack, extremely hard and it takes 3700 F to melt it (a space shuttle during reentry experienced up to 3000 F)
Aluminum melts at around 1250 F (most sources say 1215 F) so I don't know what relevance you think what you're reading has. Aluminum only has a thin surface oxide layer. Aluminum is also not particularly resistant to chemical attack. Lye will eat it right up, oxides and all. Meanwhile, aluminum is a known pollutant [nih.gov]. So really, you do not at all know what you are on about.
The byproducts of combustion of wood are not pleasant either, but they're still preferable to the aluminum. As a side benefit, producing t
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Wha? (Score:2)
Yeah, your link is fucking irrelevant because we are talking about aluminum. That was my point. Learn to stay on topic.
Re: (Score:2)
From your linked article (emphasis mine):
Aluminium (Al), when present in high concentrations, has for long been recognised as a toxic agent to aquatic freshwater organisms,i.e. downstream industrial point sources of Al-rich process water.
If you looked more closely at this topic, you'd realize that it's only a problem in acidic conditions [1], which, if the satellites are burning up over the ocean, doesn't exist.
Aluminum only has a thin surface oxide layer. Aluminum is also not particularly resistant to chemical attack. Lye will eat it right up, oxides and all... The byproducts of combustion of wood are not pleasant either, but they're still preferable to the aluminum.
Aluminum oxidizes to Al2O3, aka. tiny bits of sapphire, which is a common component of sand, dirt and rocks. If you degraded the aluminum using bases, it would form aluminum salts, which are not very reactive. You would need to eat a pound of it to die, making it a lot less deadly than table s
It all makes perfect sense (Score:2)
To people that have no idea about numbers. Which is most people and all journalists.
The fact that the rocket is orders of magnitude more polluting is a number, therefor does not count.
The fact that the amount of damage done by rockets, let alone satellites, is minuscule compared to burning coal also does not matter. Those are again numbers.
So yes. Use wood to encase environmentally sustainable satellites makes perfect sense in a world where numbers are irrelevant. (And wood is pretty light and strong an
Re: (Score:2)
You don't understand numbers, so you became so confused you even thought the Japanese also didn't understand numbers! LOL
They're not building a satellite in the first place. That's not what happened. That's not one of the numbers.
They're also not building a rocket, so those also are not the numbers.
Nor are they building a coal power plant.
What they're doing is assigning money (quantized using numbers) to various labs to do basic research on the properties of various types of woods when exposed to extreme co
Re: (Score:2)
Alumina is aluminum(III) oxide.
Low grade, it is used only as an additive. It is not a building material.
Gem grade it is Corundum, more often known by names like "ruby" and "sapphire," and lab-grown sapphire is indeed widely used in industry. However, the Space Shuttle was not made of sapphire, and used ceramic heat shields. I don't doubt those heat shields contained amorphous alumina; of course they do.
You certainly can't use the melting point of one component when measuring a ceramic. You have to test the
Re: (Score:2)
Changing some sat components to wood isn't going to make any difference to air quality.
It will if everyone does it.
How do you convince meteorites to be made out of wood?
Re: (Score:2)
Changing some sat components to wood isn't going to make any difference to air quality.
It will if everyone does it.
How do you convince meteorites to be made out of wood?
Wait, you thought meteorites were people? I hope I remember this when you publish your manifesto, so I don't accidentally read it.
Re: (Score:2)
Hey I self identify as a meteorite... ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
If you identify as a meteoroid, no complaints.
But if you identify as a meteorite, I say we should drop you from orbit to check. I say you were always a meteor, but never a meteorite.
Re: (Score:3)
Wood is also a great material for many purposes, not just that it's environmentally friendly. It's easy to work with, strong and light. It also comes in many variants that you can mix for desired effect.
The disadvantage with wood is that it can be a bit unpredictable because it can have flaws that aren't obvious.
That said - I'm all for using wood in this application.
Superwood? (Score:3)
What percentage of those asteroids is non-oxide aluminum which will burn? As opposed to aluminum oxide (and other oxides), which will just melt instead, likely forming droplets that will rapidly rain out of the atmosphere?
Not to mention, the environmental aspects could well just be the "feel-good headline" reason. They could be planning to use "superwood" rather than raw wood, then you're talking about building satellites from a relatively cheap, extremely high strength all-natural carbon-fiber composite.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Superwood? (Score:5, Interesting)
They could be planning to use "superwood"
Funny, I had to read the wife the riot act on Japanese Superwood yesterday. She brought a bonsai Buddha pine from the garden center and was fretting all over it on how pretty it is and so on.
I had to dampen her celebration by explaining her that Japanese Buddha pine is called Buddha pine, because it is what Buddhist temples are made of and it is the only wood which termites refuse to eat. The f***ing thing is so f***ing toxic that a couple of its leaves (they are not exactly needles) can completely disintegrate the liver of a cat or a dog. It is now sitting on a top shelf away from all pets and waiting to be given away as a present.
So as a matter, the Japanese have some superwood. Thankfully it burns. If, however, it does not, you would not want to have any wildlife anywhere near it.
Re:Superwood? (Score:4, Funny)
Funny, I had to read the wife the riot act on Japanese Superwood yesterday. She brought a bonsai Buddha pine from the garden center and was fretting all over it on how pretty it is and so on.
I had to dampen her celebration by explaining her that Japanese Buddha pine is called Buddha pine, because it is what Buddhist temples are made of and it is the only wood which termites refuse to eat. The f***ing thing is so f***ing toxic that a couple of its leaves (they are not exactly needles) can completely disintegrate the liver of a cat or a dog. It is now sitting on a top shelf away from all pets and waiting to be given away as a present.
My ex-wife told me that the major reason she divorced me is because she considered me as an analytical know-it-all and it was annoying her. According to her, her new bf was just a normal guy who let her have fun. So I would watch out if I were you on how much factoids you dispense even if she is wrong about something.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but worse, dispensed factoids are almost always wrong, and are taken out of context even more often than that.
Reciting factoids isn't a sign of intelligence; it is a sign of credulity combined with arrogance. And the result is an obnoxious fucking idiot, not an analyst.
Re: (Score:2)
'' she divorced me is because she considered me as an analytical know-it-all and it was annoying her. ''
Sorry to hear about your bad luck, but it was more likely your bad decision for marrying an ignorant, intolerant, simpleton, and yes.. probably and most likely a cunt.
How's that for PC?
Re: (Score:2)
That's...not a definition of superwood I've ever heard, and I would hope that was quite obvious from my post that it's completely unrelated.
Superwood is the result of a process developed a few years ago - you dissolve out all the lignin from wood in a heated acid bath, and then compress it to about 1/10th its original thickness. That causes the cellulose fibers to cross-link with each other to form a new, stable material stronger than steel.
(As for toxic plants, lilies are similarly bad and far more popul
Re:Superwood? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sure your riot act was a riot, but you're a fucking moron.
You're lucky she is also a moron; if she ever looked up the stupid shit you say, you'd be screwed!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Kusamaki is the state tree of Chiba Prefecture, Japan. It is a popular large shrub or small tree in gardens, particularly in Japan and the Southeastern United States. The ripe cone arils are edible, though the seed should not be eaten. Because of its resistance to termites and water, inumaki is used for quality wooden houses in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan.
Here is a site about eating Buddha Pine. http://www.eattheweeds.com/pod... [eattheweeds.com]
Like so many other things on the Internet that starts out as a “warning” on one site becomes “avoid” on another, “toxic” on a third and “deadly” by the fourth. It is truly unfortunate that every new medium of communication invented by man becomes a heap of nonsense. Most sites will tell you the fruits of the Podocarpus macrophyllus are toxic and avoid them. This is highly inaccurate.
Here is a site about pet danger; yes it is toxic, but the bigger danger is actually that you'll confuse it with Japanese Yew, which is a lot more toxic than Buddha Pine.
https://www.petpoisonhelpline.... [petpoisonhelpline.com]
More importantly, this plant should not be confused with the genus Taxus (e.g., Japanese Yew), which is much more deadly!
https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/pl... [ncsu.edu]
CAUSES ONLY LOW TOXICITY IF EATEN. Children may eat the fleshy seeds that resemble fruits.
When you think somebody is doing something dangerous, stop, drop your know-it-all bullshit, and roll up a web search before you open your fat stupid mouth. I hope she asks somebody who can read, I hate to hear about a poor tree being abused like that.
Re: (Score:3)
There's a difference between meteorites and alumina.
Most meteorites consist of stone. A fraction contains iron or other metals. While aluminium has been found in meteorites, it has never been in raw form that could oxidise into alumina. Aluminium bonds too easily with other elements.
Alumina (aluminium oxide) is hard and durable and particles are abrasive -- which is why most sandpaper is made from it.
Alumina particles are light and they don't decompose, so they could fly around in the air for a very long ti
Re:Wha? (Score:4, Insightful)
If we want to lift things into orbit during a timescale of millions of years, it'd be better to think of ways to stop burning it all up in the atmosphere shortly after it was lifted.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, you're not going to do that in LEO. It doesn't matter what your intended time scale is; if you're lifting shit to LEO, and no higher, it is coming back down very soon.
If you don't believe me, I recommend Walter Lewin's youtube channel.
Re: (Score:2)
If human kind wants to lift things into orbit during a time-scale of millions of years, it'd better think of these things sooner than later.
If humankind wants to lift things into orbit over megayear timescales, humankind had better figure out how to exist as a species that long. It's quite difficult.
It's not likely to be an issue even if the species continues that long. If humanity becomes a spacefaring civilization, odds are very good that the population off Earth grows to dwarf Earth's population. There are more resources available off Earth than on it and living in space is dangerous enough that it should readily overcome the Rat Palace a
Re: (Score:2)
Personally, I doubt the species lasts a million years.
You can make this as true or false as you want merely by calibrating the arbitrary metric "species" to match the desired claim.
Re: (Score:2)
Our environment has developed over billions of years and as such is it in balance with the constant rain of material coming from space. The problem is with material that gets put into the upper atmosphere in addition to what is already coming in contact with it. When the effect of aluminium particles is already know then we should do something about it and not leave the problem to the next generations. Our responsibility for our environment starts with us.
Re: (Score:2)
Public posturing and virtue signaling.
In a democracy, where budgets are determined by politicians as a result of popular vote, it is absolutely a survival/budget-growth tactic to spend some resources on courting public approval, even if the basis is scientifically idiotic.
cf. NASA climate change, or the Obama-era "the primary mission of Nasa is Arab-outreach" lol
Re: (Score:2)
Wait, what? You thought wooden satellites were so cool they amounted to bread and cicuses? *ROFLCOPTER*
Wait, what? You thought Obama had promoted the mission of NASA as "Arab-outreach"[sic]? That's some serious AM radio you're listening to, your dial must be all the way down by the bible broadcast network. LMAO
Re: (Score:3)
You really don't actually understand the term "Bread and Circuses", do you? Panem et circenses was Juvenal's comment regarding the public's ability to vote themselves benefits from government. If you actually read the words I wrote and understood them, you'd have realized I was talking about nearly the opposite: government programs in a democracy catering to the whims of the public to court THEIR favor and get funding.
Next time maybe try it a little slower, or read the words aloud - it can help comprehens
Good, proactive environmentalism (Score:5, Insightful)
More proactive environmentalism like this is necessary. Compare and contrast with the Western world saying "Nah it's probably fine, not causing a problem yet anyway" about fossil fuels for a century or two in the face of ever-increasing evidence of global warming. Even now, Australia, Brazil, and the USA continue to intentionally drag their feet.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wood's a helluva lot cheaper and easier to make!
Re: (Score:2)
Wood's a helluva lot cheaper and easier to make!
And that strong assumption depends entirely on the solution.
You find out very quickly the actual cost of time when you're literally sitting around waiting to grow your product.
Re: (Score:2)
Why wood? Why not carbon fiber? It burns up and breaks down as carbon all the same.
Because they're not building a satellite, they're studying the properties of wood under extreme conditions on Earth so that they satellite engineers have materials data on wood when they're selecting parts.
They already have data on carbon fiber under extreme conditions. Wood usually gets excluded from the set of test materials. The Japanese are saying, basically, that was a mistake; they need the numbers for all the different available materials if they're going to make informed decisions, and this material
Re: (Score:2)
Brazil is a case of "the justice just don't work" than anything else.
Terrible laws that allow murderers to just walk out of the jail free, so people that do shit like burning the amazon just don't care about any laws you pass, as they're not effectively being enforced.
Re: (Score:3)
Not at all, Japan certainly has its own problems, for example it's only in the last few decades that the level of xenophobia there has fallen from "horrendously overwhelming" to "possibly still worse than the States."
Re:Good, proactive environmentalism (Score:4)
Um, you know nothing about Japan OR the US.
This should be entertaining.
The US isn't fucking xenophobic at all you asshole.
LOLWUT? XD
And Japan definitely IS.
The only correct part of your post.
Go try to emigrate to Japan. Good fucking luck.
As if emigrating to the US would be easier? At least they won't separate you from your kids and jam you all in cages if you try to enter Japan illegally.
Re: (Score:2)
Go try to emigrate to Japan. Good fucking luck.
As if emigrating to the US would be easier?
Wow, you're a real Grade A moron. No substitute. Don't settle for mere mediocrity, be Really Fucking Stupid.
Japan doesn't even have a category most people could use to apply.
They count 354,503 people as foreign permanent residents who were from Korea and Taiwan and came to Japan during the colonial period, and chose to stay after WWII ended. That number used to be higher. Note that this population accounts for most of the "foreigners" who are granted Japanese citiz
Re: (Score:2)
America is bad in this area. Their current President ran on a political platform with raw xenophobic hatred as a major platform pillar and damn near took a majority of votes. Pointing out that they have a relatively large proportion of immigrants doesn't mean much when everyone in the country who isn't a Native American is descended from immigrants. First the British didn't like the Germans, then the British and Germans didn't like the Irish, then the British and Germans and Irish didn't like the Chinese, a
Re: (Score:2)
America is bad in this area. Their current President ran on a political platform with raw xenophobic hatred as a major platform pillar and damn near took a majority of votes. Pointing out that they have a relatively large proportion of immigrants doesn't mean much when everyone in the country who isn't a Native American is descended from immigrants. First the British didn't like the Germans, then the British and Germans didn't like the Irish, then the British and Germans and Irish didn't like the Chinese, and so on until now they're at the point where the morass of vaguely European white folks don't like anyone who is vaguely Hispanic or Middle Eastern (or of course the black people who have been there just about as long as they have but that's more of a racism/white nationalism issue than xenophobia). Xenophobia has always been there in one variety or another.
And the situation you've linked to is still not as bad as separating children from their parents and locking them all in cages where diseases run rampant, or using the border area as a natural killing field and imprisoning people who leave survival supplies there. You can argue that the US is less xenophobic than Japan, but to argue that they're not xenophobic at all is ridiculous gaslighting.
Hyperbole. You clearly have never spent much time in the US. What happens when people emigrate illegally into your country? I'll bet it's prison for them?
Re: (Score:2)
Your screed is pretty weak when you didn't even know that many of the hispanic people are white; it refers to use of a language, in a region very far from Hispania.
Hispania is obsolete name for part of what is now Spain. Spain in is Europe. Most Spanish people are white.
Re: (Score:2)
With a turnover on par with McDonald's, accidentally hiring a gay guy for a week is hardly a surprise.
Re: (Score:2)
74 million people voted in favor of putting immigrant kids in cages, building a giant wall, and using torture on foreign terrorism "suspects."
How is that not xenophobic?
Re: (Score:2)
No, actually they didn't. Though the torture on foreign terrorism is tacitly condoned behind the scenes if the situation is bad enough, irrespective of who sits in the big chair.
The vast majority voted for old school conservatism, which is blithely overlooked by a lot of people who love to throw sensationalist accusations around because they can't be arsed to deal with the reality that most things are generally quite mundane.
Re: (Score:2)
Old school conservatism is a wonderful thing... if you're a white, Christian male. For everyone else.... not so much,
Re: (Score:2)
I spent most of the year shouting that people need to vote, because there are children in cages.
But I'm not stupid enough to think the Republican voters were intentionally "voting to put kids in cages." They're just shaved apes, like the rest of us. If they support things that horrible, it was probably by mistake.
They're just shaved apes, like the rest of us. They were probably told that they had to vote that way to stop the other side from murdering babies, outlawing Christmas, and replacing math and scien
Re: (Score:2)
''check what the results usually are in other systems of governance for people who are inconvenient to the authorities''
Well stated. Here's a perfect example of how the EU ''handled'' a similar situation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
For that reason alone, no wonder illegal aliens usually are fully cooperative if caught during entry. Even the worst institutional living condition they are required to endure is significantly much better than the conditions they had endured before attempting illegal entry.
Re: (Score:2)
I used the word "suspects." The problem is when you deprive rights from someone before a trial or any meaningful proof of their guilt. You just don't get that. You keep saying terrorists don't have rights, but you treat people like terrorists before even knowing whether they are or are not.
Sounds like a scam (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think that they are planning on replacing the radioactive isotopes with mesquite.
Re: Sounds like a scam (Score:2)
In space... no one can hear the hamster scream inside its power generating wheel.
Re: (Score:3)
Which reminds me that one of the original concepts for Aliens 3 supposedly had everything taking place on a wooden spaceship. The primary concept was that with everything made out of wood there would be a distinct lack of weapons with which to fight the alien.
Re: (Score:2)
with everything made out of wood there would be a distinct lack of weapons with which to fight the alien.
How come? Just slash it with brakka wood blades!
Practical concerns (Score:3)
I'm concerned about weight and structural integrity. How much wood is needed to keep the satellite stable during liftoff and orbital insertion? I don't have the numbers handy, but I suspect the mass would need to be be significantly greater than that of an all-metal satellite. Possibly the bulk as well. Also, you'd likely have to enclose the wooden satellite in a metal shell to survive liftoff, which would still leave metal debris in a (possibly decaying) orbit,
A possible alternative to natural wood would be something like aligned paper, which in theory could be made stronger and lighter than wood. But I don't believe the tech to make that is available yet.
Unless this whole thing is someone's idea of a joke, in which case ... nevermind.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It wouldn't take much of an increase in weight to negate any kind of environmental benefit. You end up with that many more upper stages re-entering the atmosphere and that much more rocket fuel burned.
Never mind wood satellites (Score:2)
How about modular cars that are easy to swap out with cheap sections to keep them new.
There is maybe a couple thousand satellites up there vs the millions of cars that get scrapped every year.
Nothing more than a PR stunt!
Re: (Score:2)
That is extremely bad logic. Just because cars need to be fixed does not mean other things do not need to be fixed.
By your logic, every single person in the world should be working on the single worst problem. And we would all solve it but be killed by all the other problems we are ignoring.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Never mind wood satellites (Score:2)
What logic are you using, if any at all!
Cars a MAJOR polluter and contribute to more waste misery than a billion satellites can ever cause. And itâ(TM)s Right Fucking There in front of us.
Steampunk Satelites. (Score:2)
After all, the satellites will need some metal, might as well use some brass or bronze, as well as some nice gold for conductive surfaces.
I don't think this will work (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When I read TFS, I thought immediately of the consequence of making a satellite out of a dielectric (non-conducting) material. Such a satellite could pick up significant amounts of static charge, enough to cause failures in the onboard electronics. The problem has been known for some time. [nasa.gov] I see no mention of this issue in TFA.
Stupid and smart (Score:3)
On the other hand, using wood as a building material in space could be extremely interesting and useful. Not so much for earth satellites, but say you hollowed out an asteroid and were growing trees as part of creating breathable oxygen and a food supply. Being self sustaining becomes more important if you consider how isolated people would be In our own solar system.
spy satellites (Score:3)
As someone else pointed out, the earth receives about 100 TONS of dust and material from space every day. This will include the aluminum claimed to be harmful and many others. As such, the impact of satellites on the material in the atmosphere is a trivial amount.
What I suspect is that this is a cover story for hard to spot satellites instead.
Re: (Score:2)
Outgassing (Score:2)
On the face of it, it seems outgassing (release of gas within a material) would be a horrendous problem.
With metal it's a significant issue for many spacecraft where volatile material within the metal is released in space,
but can then condense on cold parts of the satellite. That can be particularly bad if it's condensing on your detector which is
cooled for e.g. IR detection.
With all the organic material of various types inside wood, it would seem that it would become far far worse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/ [wikipedia.org]
We built wooden planes for decades (Score:2)
So why not?
Re: (Score:2)
Same thought I had. Do you need tensile strength or stiffness?
There was an article or chapter in a book by a marine architect that compared boat building materials, and wood finished way higher than I thought because much of the time stiffness is more important than tensile strength.
They should use magnesium instead (Score:2)
At least we won't getting any cramps when they burn in the atmosphere.
And the path to the great treeship begins. (Score:3)
The Treeships [fandom.com] were one of my favorite sci-fi concepts of all time.
In all seriousness, if they can actually create a satellite frame and exterior out of wood, that would be a really cool idea. I mean, sure, it's not eliminating all the problems, as there will still be electronic components made up of various silicon, plastic and metal, but frames and external structure make up a large percentage of the possibly toxic materials in a satellite. I say more power to them.
Imagine a baseball bat in orbit... (Score:2)
What would be the difference between the ISS being hit by an aluminum bat or a Louisville Slugger?
Now imagine that same bat re-entering the atmosphere. In either case, it will burn up and no longer be space junk.
Re: (Score:2)
What would be the difference between the ISS being hit by an aluminum bat or a Louisville Slugger?
Now imagine that same bat re-entering the atmosphere. In either case, it will burn up and no longer be space junk.
Except you can now imagine reality with that "bat" weighing in at several thousand pounds.
If all "space junk" burned up on re-entry, exactly none of us would be sitting here discussing alternative materials.
Am I missing something here? (Score:2)
Re: Am I missing something here? (Score:2)
A very bad idea (Score:2)
Vacuum drying of wood (Score:3)
Of course the entire vehicle couldn't be made of wood, just the structural parts. All the other metal would still vaporize upon re-entry, would using wood this way really make that much of a difference?
I think perhaps, as access to orbit and space in general becomes less and less expensive, that salvage operations might end up being more practical.
Here's a thought: what if satellites were equipped with the capability to de-orbit in a controlled way, and a parachute, so they don't burn up, and can be retrieved and recycled?
"Without releasinf harmful substances" (Score:2)
CO2: Am I a joke to you??
Also, are they gonna make the electronics and solar panels out of wood or what? This ain't Pinoccio! Get real!
Re: (Score:2)
Any carbon sequestering off-world is only temporary as the wooden satellite falls out of orbit.
If we really want to tackle climate change, get SpaceX on it! :) Wooden structures on Mars where there's little oxygen with which to catch fire. And the Martians' atmosphere is 95% CO2 anyway.
Origami Satellites (Score:2)
Paper (hey, it's wood!) folding would be awesome for satellites. They already unfold solar panels and antennas. "Is that satellite a crane or a dinosaur?"
Do you want Space Termites?? (Score:2)
Because this is now you get Space Termites!!
Japan, love ‘em (Score:2)
That is forward thinking. More places need mountain forests, I swear that is what keeps them thinking out of the box.
Godzilla vs. Biollante (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"Wooden satellites would burn up without releasing harmful substances into the atmosphere or raining debris on the ground when they plunge back to Earth."
- TFS
Re: (Score:2)
I see.
Re: How does this reduce junk? (Score:2)