Lift-Off

Inspired by creative thinkers with stratospheric ambition, we launch our very own Wallpaper* Moonshots Division, a design lab with extraordinary objectives. Watch this space for Earth-shaking new products, prototypes, experiences and immersions

Daan Roosegaarde is a tall, exuberant man with big, exciting ideas (the Dutch often are). Since establishing his design studio in Rotterdam a decade ago, he has created energy-neutral street lighting, energy-generating kites, an on-demand aurora borealis to illustrate the threat of rising water levels and, most famously, a smog-sucking tower. His latest mission is to dam or divert orbiting streams of space trash; 29,000 satellite bits and rocket pieces which, if left unchecked, threaten to block escape routes out of the Earth’s atmosphere. Or at least wipe out your Wi-Fi for a good while.

In October, his studio launched Space Waste Lab, the first move in a long-term effort to take down, or better upcycle, as much of this orbital junk as possible. To kickstart a space waste expo and symposium, Roosegaarde and his team set up camp at the KAF cultural centre in Almere in the Netherlands and aimed high-powered LEDs at scrap metal orbiting at altitudes of anywhere between 200 and 20,000km (they had spent over a year working with space agencies to develop tracking technology and obtain the requisite safety approvals).

This spectacular light show, with monthly repeats through to January next year, is an effort to illuminate and pinpoint just one per cent of space trash more than 10cm long (pieces much smaller than this, some travelling at a speed of 25,000km/h, can also cause catastrophic damage to satellites but they are almost impossible to map).

The three-month-long space waste expo, put together with advisors from Nasa and the European Space Agency, includes workshops or ‘living labs’. Amateurs and professionals, scientists and schoolchildren alike are encouraged to come along and throw in their own ideas and suggestions.