VPRO backlight. The big space waste cleanup

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Summary

Dutch artist and innovator Daan Roosegaarde is on a mission to clean up space. Over 100 million pieces of 'space waste' - debris of discarded satellites and rockets - are littering the space surrou...

Dutch artist and innovator Daan Roosegaarde is on a mission to clean up space. Over 100 million pieces of 'space waste' - debris of discarded satellites and rockets - are littering the space surrounding the Earth. At a speed of 25,000 km per hour, a collision could have catastrophic consequences for communication on Earth. How can we clean up space, and who is going to do it? Will our planet become imprisoned by its own space waste? Nearly 30,000 identified pieces of space waste larger than 10 centimetres circle the Earth at a speed of 7 km per second, and their number is increasing. Frequently, pieces of satellites, rockets, and weather and space stations come off. According to estimates by the European Space Agency (ESA), some 7,500 tonnes of space scrap are now floating above our heads, from minuscule particles to pieces the size of a city bus.

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