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33 U. La Verne L. Rev. 285 (2011-2012)
To Infinity and beyond: Orbital Space Debris and How to Clean It Up

handle is hein.journals/jjuvl33 and id is 297 raw text is: TO INFINITY AND BEYOND: ORBITAL SPACE DEBRIS AND HOW TO CLEAN IT UP AGATHA AKERS* Out in the depths of space the great celestial cities, the galaxies, cluttered with the memorabilia of ages, are slowly dying. Tens of billions of years pass in the growing darkness ... of a universe destined to become a galactic graveyard. - Edward Robert Harrison1 ABSTRACT For the fifty-five years since the launch of the first space rocket, humans have been polluting outer space. Within this relatively short time period, the number of man-made objects in space has grown and grown. In the early days of space exploration, it was thought that eventually those objects, when no longer operational, would re-enter Earth's atmosphere and bum up before reaching the surface. But this did not occur; instead, defunct space objects have continued to occupy orbital space for decades and will potentially do so for centuries to come. Modem society has also grown more reliant on space objects like satellites for daily communication, education, research, information, and military needs. Space access is no longer limited to nation states; space is now a commercial asset that private industries exploit in order to fuel profitable businesses and provide valuable services to individuals throughout the world. This increased use of space, in the absence of debris removal, leads experts to fear an * Juris Doctor candidate, University of La Verne College of Law, 2013. B.A. in English Literature from Northwestern Uni\ ersity, 2002. The author would like to thank Professors Charles Doskow and Almas Khan for their invaluable assistance and feedback during the writing process. The author also thanks her husband, Daniel Akers, who has been incredibly supportive throughout law school and her dogs, Daisy and Cubby, who kept her lap warm as she wrote this Comment. 1. EDWARD HARRISON, COSMOLOGY: THE SCIENCE OF THE UNIVERSE 526 (2d ed. 2000).

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