With no garbage pickups in two years, space station gets cluttered

AP via Casa Grande Valley Newspapers, Inc. ^ | September 30, 2004 | Marcia Dunn

[supercat]

Yes, I think so.

If they're filling up the cargo ships before deorbiting them, how is the station filling up with trash? Does trash get uncompressibly bigger after it's removed from the cargo ships that brought it?

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Sounds like a job for these guys:

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Rats, didn't work.

[BradyLS]

Why can't Russia just send Soyuz to pick up the trash, since US is not launching space shuttles after Columbia.

For that matter, why don't WE have some drone craft?

[Ptarmigan]

Yeah, how come the US has not developed that???????????

[ItsForTheChildren]

They must've imparted some energy to them to put them into a lower orbit and eventually into the atmosphere....but how did they do that?

Push?

[FReepaholic]

...Push?...

If they did that then they'd impart the same energy against the station. Probably not enough to put the trash into a separate orbit anyway.

[Larry Lucido]

When I toss discarded antenna covers and pump panels out of my car window at 80 mph, they just sail out onto the median. You'd think at 17,500 mph, there would be enough wind to carry them quite a ways away.

[FReepaholic]

...You'd think at 17,500 mph, there would be enough wind to carry them quite a ways away...

I'd be afraid to stick my arm out the window at that speed.

[Larry Lucido]

I know, if your arm were to a space station going 17,500 mph in the opposite direction, that would leave quite a mark. You might even lose it.

[Larry Lucido]

"arm were to a space station"

arm were to HIT a space station