With the recent satellite collision fresh on everyone"s minds and the U.S. delaying the Shuttle launch yet again, it might be a good idea to bring in the Space Debris Vacuum Cleaner. This vacuum cleaner, a concept put together by the Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base in Alabama, would be technology designed to detect, engage, and capture any space debris (man-made or natural) that could damage orbiting satellites or space vehicles.
Currently, NORAD tracks space debris down to the size of a tennis ball. The technology that they envision would be capable of detecting debris down to the size of a small marble. A constellation of space shuttle-like vehicles with a great deal of maneuvering fuel and storage area could be used with high power radars to detect space particles it wanted to capture. High power lasers would then be used to alter the particle"s path, in a sense `sweeping` them into the proper orbit so they could be intercepted by the space shuttle-like vehicles.