daan roosegaarde wants to upcycle space waste into shooting stars and moon habitats

dutch artist and innovator daan roosegaarde and his team of designers and engineers have been investigating how to deal with space waste. in june 2018, his studio announced the start of a multi-year program to capture space waste and upcycle it into sustainable products. over the past months, roosegaarde has continued to investigate creative solutions for the 8.1 million kilos of space waste and launched a series of new creative solutions and future plans on january 19 at a special space waste lab symposium. the event built on the ideas around sustainable experiences that can result from upcycled waste, such as artificial shooting stars, space waste ‘vacuum cleaners’, and 3D printed structures for the moon.

floating space waste collectors will clean and protect the earth by capturing space waste

the space waste lab symposium — held at cultural hot spot kunstlinie almere flevoland (KAF) — presented the ideas of the thousands of people who contributed to the space waste lab exhibition over the last months. together with experts from the european space agency (ESA) and students, roosegaarde reflected on the results and validate the concepts in terms of technology and feasibility.

space debris is used to form a giant solar reflector to lower incoming solar radiation

the main project is ‘shooting stars’, which sees space waste captured and burned in the earth’s atmosphere to create artificial shooting stars. the project intends to clean up space and offer a new spectacle of light — the future of fireworks. another ideas would see space waste become 3D-printable material for habitats sited on the moon, and giant machines convert collected space debris into a plasma fuel to create self-perpetuating space cleaning operations.

the studio proposes artificial shooting stars as the next generation of fireworks

meanwhile, the space waste lab performance is a live art installation that features real-time tracking information and LEDs, which visualizes space waste in the sky at an altitude of 200 to 20,000 kilometers. the live space waste lab performance was open to the public on january 2019 18 + 19 at KAF.

moon habitats: space waste can become a building block for future space societies