Are we trashing the final frontier?

As we push into the final frontier, we are leaving our mark. We have already left more than 400,000 pounds of human-made material on the moon. Rovers and bits of defunct orbiters litter the surface of Mars. And scientists have sent robotic spacecraft hurtling out past Pluto with no final destination.

In our own cosmic backyard, space trash abounds. Between abandoned satellites, pieces of old spacecraft, and spent rocket stages, more than 21,000 pieces of debris orbit Earth. The threat of such debris colliding with expensive satellites or careening to Earth has prompted some wild ideas to tidy the immediate area of space surrounding our planet. Those ideas have ranged from slingshots and nets to gecko-like sticky pads

Current constraintsBeyond lifeOne generation’s trash ...So what do we do?