Cleaning Up the Cosmos

"Sweaty spacecraft" could be the key to a greener future for the space travel industry

- EILEEN FALKENBERG HULL

THE EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY estimates that there are 130 million pieces of space junk from the 6,800-plus successful rocket launches since 1957. The South Pacific Ocean Uninhabited Area, near Point Nemo, is called the spacecraft cemetery as craft are routinely crashed there at the end of their usefulness. Orbital debris falls into the Earth's atmosphere and burns up on its way back down.

Until recently, many spacecraft have been single-use. The longest-serving one, space shuttle Discovery, only flew a few dozen times until 2011. Now, scientists at Texas A&M University's Department of Aerospace Engineering are developing a 3D-printed material to make spacecraft reusable, in partnership with Canopy Aerospace and enabled by a $1.7 million Air Force Small Business Technology Transfer grant.