Junk Masters

Screws, nuts, and satellites’ pieces are only some of the thousands of space debris pieces which circulate around Earth. Although they are usually very small (size varies from 1 mm to 10 cm), they travel at very high speeds, reaching up to 17,500 mph. This can create serious damage to space vehicles, even to the International Space Station and our satellites.

If our satellites were destroyed, we would have communication problems, leaving us back in the stone age. We wouldn’t be able to chat nor to call anyone, so we have to be aware of the great dangers space junk represents.

This is why NASA has developed a protocol in order to prevent space debris from colliding with any vehicle or satellite. The protocol, usually referred as “Pizza Box” because of its flat shape, consists in drawing an imaginary box around the vehicle. When predictions say the debris will enter the box, Mission Control centers in Houston and Moscow work together in order to create a course of action.

However, Donald J. Kessler once said that the density of the wastes around Earth would increase and, being this true, more collisions would happen, creating more garbage. If this happened, the Pizza Box protocol will lose its functionality.

The aim of Junk Masters is to provide visual help of a possible solution for this tremendous problem, involving the use of a spacecraft which will recollect the debris, instead of dodging it, so that future trips could be done.

In the game, users will operate the machine, which will circulate around Earth, picking up space junk and trying to avoid asteroids. The more they recollect, the more points they will gain. They will also be able to upgrade their spaceship, including aspects such as health points (HP) and storage capacity.

We hope that, by sharing this video game, we will give visual help for the problem and we will promote creative and innovative ideas to clean our space surroundings.

Solar energy

The solar energy that reaches the earth's surface consists of direct and diffused light. When solar radiation reaches the atmosphere, 6% is reflected and 16% absorbed. The various atmospheric conditions reduce solar radiation by an additional 20% in terms of reflection and an additional 3% by absorption. These atmospheric conditions not only reduce the amount of energy that reaches the Earth but also diffuse approximately 20% of the light and filter portions of its electromagnetic spectrum. After crossing the atmosphere, approximately half of the solar radiation is in the visible electromagnetic spectrum while the other half is in the infrared spectrum (a small portion is ultraviolet radiation). Due to the atmospheric effects mentioned, only between 10% and 13% of the total energy that reaches the Earth can be used. In absolute data this is approximately 0.1-0.2 kW / m²

The extraterrestrial solar energy is that which is acquired outside the Earth's atmosphere. Thanks to the absence of atmospheric gases or cloud formations, in the space near the earth the solar radiation is 35% higher than that reached by the earth's surface. In addition, by selecting the appropriate orbit, sunlight can be achieved approximately 96% of the time. An additional advantage is the fact that there are no problems of weight or atmospheric corrosion in space.

On the other hand, a problem is its high cost. Another disadvantage is the fact that the transmission of energy for consumption on the Earth's surface would cause energy losses of at least 40-50%