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| ‘Seungriho’ poster © News1 |
In Korea’s first space sci-fi movie’Seungriho,’ released on Netflix, an unfamiliar business called space garbage cleaning appears. Captain Jang (Kim Tae-ri), Kim Tae-ho (Song Joong-ki), and Tiger Park (Jin Sun-gyu) aboard the sweeping ship’Seungri’ earn pennies by picking up and selling space garbage. It is the collection of debris from spacecraft or debris from satellites and space structures that have reached the end of their life.
The reason they left the Earth in 2092 and boarded the Seungri is because the Earth was devastated to the extent that it was difficult for humans to live due to severe environmental pollution. Accordingly, UTS, a space development company, will create a new home for mankind by floating an artificial settlement in the orbit of the Earth. Only 5% of all citizens can live in the luxurious living quarters comfortably created by UTS. Citizens who do not belong to this are said to remain on Earth or live in lagging artificial cities and become space workers. The same goes for the crew of Seung-ho.
Of course, it’s the same garbage, but the difficulty of collecting in space and on Earth is different. At the beginning of the film, the ambassador of a reporter who asks UTS CEO James Sullivan how hard it is to clean up space debris is explained.
“The universe is a world of garbage. A satellite that has reached the end of its life, a lost spacecraft, the debris of a space building, and tens of thousands to hundreds of millions of small pieces created when they collide with each other. And chasing space junk ten times faster than a bullet.”
Even in reality, space debris is a big headache for space development. Space debris orbits the Earth at about 40,000 km/h. As set in the movie, it is about 11 times faster than the bullet speed of the gun, which is 3500 km/h. After the end of its life in space, the remaining remains of an exploded satellite continue to move in a circular motion in the Earth’s orbit while maintaining the speed at the time of the explosion in outer space without air resistance.
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| ‘Seungriho’ still cut © News1 |
But, as in the movie, is space garbage cleaning really a difficult business to make money? Although the movie depicts the future of the future 70 years from now, space garbage cleaning is a high-tech industry that no one can jump into. Major powers around the world, such as NASA of the United States and the European Space Agency (ESA), are developing advanced technologies related to space debris removal.
Korea is no exception. The government released the ‘2021 Space Development Promotion Implementation Plan’ last month and confirmed a space development plan worth 615 billion won this year. These plans also included the preparation of a mid- to long-term plan to develop space waste removal technology.
Recently, private companies are also jumping into space waste cleaning. The contract signed by Swiss startup ClearSpace in December last year with the European Space Agency (ESA) is an example. Under the agreement, Clearspace will launch space garbage collection satellites by 2025. The contract amount reached 86.2 million euros (approximately 11.6 billion won).
Experts predict that space waste cleaning will become more active in the future with the participation of private companies.
Professor Yoon Yong-Hyun of Kookmin University’s Defense Unmanned Research Institute said, “As space debris increases further, space debris removal is expected to grow into a high value-added industry.” said.