Look up into the night sky and – if you’re lucky – you’ll see lots of stars or even the Milky Way, maybe a satellite passing overhead. What you don’t see is all the orbital debris that’s circling the planet.
Humans have been launching objects into space for more than 60 years. While some fall back to Earth, much of what was sent into space still remains there, traveling around the planet.
“There's 900,000 pieces of junk flying around in low Earth orbit,” said Sen. John Hickenlooper.
The problem is all those bits of space trash pose a risk for other satellites that the U.S. and other governments and private companies want to send up for purposes ranging from communications to research.
A bill that Hickenlooper and Rep. Joe Neguse are trying to get through Congress and to the president’s desk aims to deal with that web of junk in space.
“We have smaller and smaller spaces we can target for those satellites if we don't do something about this junk, and that's what Orbits is really about, is to put resources and incentivize innovation to find new ways of collecting that junk and getting it out of space,” Hickenlooper explained.
The Orbital Sustainability (Orbits) ACT is a bipartisan and bicameral bill that would set up a first-of-its-kind demonstration project to reduce the amount of space trash. It directs NASA to establish a demonstration program with industry to develop technology to remove the debris from orbit.
“This is something that had been on our radar, so to speak, for some time,” Neguse said. “And given the opportunity, we thought this would make a lot of sense for us to push ahead.”
He said it’s not just the amount of debris up there, but how fast it moves.
“There’s a safety risk for our astronauts,” Neguse said. He said Hickenlooper talked to him about the issue, and he’d also been hearing about it from people in his district, which is home to a number of labs with connections to NASA. “We heard from a variety of different scientists and folks connected with exploration that we believe this would be a problem for years to come, absent some type of federal legislative response.”
The bill passed the Senate twice. The first time was at the end of the 117th Congress, and most recently last November. But it has not moved in the House, where there was no companion measure until recently.
Neguse and a bipartisan group introduced the bill there in June, boosting the chances of passage.
“I think the fact that the bill passed unanimously in the United States Senate is a harbinger, we hope, for things to come in the House,” Neguse said. He said they’ve asked the chair of the Science, Space and Technology committee for a hearing. Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo, who is a co-sponsor, sits on that committee, as does GOP Rep. Greg Lopez.
“Hope Springs eternal that … this bill could be considered on the Suspension Calendar,” Neguse said. That route requires support from two-thirds of the chamber, but many noncontroversial, bipartisan bills clear the House this way.
And with time on the legislative calendar ticking down, Hickenlooper said he’s also looking at getting it rolled into a must-pass bill, such as the annual defense policy bill the NDAA.
“Whatever it takes,” he said. “I think almost everyone supports it, so if we don’t get it done this year one way or the other, I will be deeply disappointed.”
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