Comments and anecdotes about the event:
This meeting featured Adam Kall from KMI, in Marquette, Michigan. KMI is developing technology to locate, capture and bring down large orbital debris. earth orbit is becoming an increasingly dangerous place due to space debris and the possibly of collisions. One of the main concerns is large pieces, such as rocket boosters, which could collide (and eventually will) with something and produce a bunch of smaller debris which is harder to locate and remove. Adam showed a bunch of graphs and statistics which described the magnitude of the problem and how it is getting worse. He then moved on to how. KMI is planning to orbit spacecraft that can identify debris and move it to an orbit that will cause rapid reentry of the piece in question. He also spoke about other possibilities, such as collecting material in orbit and using it to manufacture new items aboard a space station. We had 22 attendees in-person, and 5 via Zoom.