Most people don't realize that any space debris removal tool is actually considered a weapon, so it's kinda hard to deploy them for real production usage.
EDIT: googled relevant documentation: US Munitions List: https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?node=pt22.1.121#se22.1...
> *(2) Autonomously detect and track moving ground, airborne, missile, or space objects other than celestial bodies, in real-time using imaging, infrared, radar, or laser systems;
and maybe other points around it are also applicable.
A weapon is a weapon even before it is used in anger.
Only if you use an incredibly loose definition of 'weapon'. I suppose you think hammers, shoestrings, pebbles, carrots, and and a rotting fish are all weapons too, since they could cause damage if used in anger?
> Only if you use an incredibly loose definition of 'weapon'.
No, by the standard definition. A gun is a weapon even before you shoot someone with it, it doesn't transform from a non-weapon to a weapon when that happens.
https://www.quora.com/Do-martial-artists-have-to-register-th...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapon
A firearm is not a weapon it is an armament. An armament only becomes a weapon when it is used to inflict harm.
Well, it can be if your audience doesn't actually follow the link, but that trick is more effective with references in hardcopy where there is non-trivial effort involved in checking references.
An object not normally regarded as a weapon -- a walking-stick, perhaps, or a kitchen knife -- might become a weapon by virtue of its use as one. But military arms are inherently weapons, whether in use or not.
You're looking at things through the lens of a ground-dweller, where by default, all high-energy events diffuse their energy through the environment in a matter of moments. Even nuclear explosions or asteroid impacts will diffuse in relatively short periods of time. Thus, it is an exception to encounter a configuration of matter that can deliver the sort of concentrated energy and/or mass meant to hurt somebody, and we can assume that they are deliberately created by an intelligence, place such exceptional objects into exceptional cognitive categories and create special laws for them, and so on.
In space, there is no such energy diffusion. Anything put into orbit is going much faster than all but the fastest bullets and are much larger to boot, and thus put any firearms you've ever seen to shame. If it's in orbit, and it's still useful which implies it has the ability to maneuver, it's a weapon. It may also be other things, but it is certainly a weapon; everything could be used at the very least to threaten something else. (Think chess here; even threats have real impact.)
Even if you can't agree with that, it doesn't matter, because everybody involved with space does and will continue to act accordingly.
(The signed agreements not to militarize space are quite pointless, really, and I doubt there's a single signatory to any such agreement that is actually abiding by it even if we stipulate for the sake of argument that a "mere satellite" isn't a weapon despite the manifest untruth of such a stipulation.)
Regardless of the (im-)morality of weaponizing space I'm fairly certain the only binding treaty signed by the space powers addressing weapons in space was The Outer Space Treaty of '66. That only banned nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction.
As far as the definition of weapon; popular opinion isn't germain if we're discussing a legal matter, only the legal definition and how loose it might be. In the past few decades the US, Russia, and China have all shot down a satellite with missles from Earth, and generated more space junk in the process I might add. If that didn't run afoul of a treaty I don't see how this project could.
We've just redefined everything as a "weapon", not sure if that is useful. Though, I think we are slightly more afraid than before, which might be the intended goal here.
https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?node=pt22.1.121#se22.1...
> *(2) Autonomously detect and track moving ground, airborne, missile, or space objects other than celestial bodies, in real-time using imaging, infrared, radar, or laser systems;
and maybe other points around it are also applicable.
It could indirectly cause bodily harm, e.g. cause autonomous cars suddenly lose GPS lock and crash into things.
Very useful technology, even if it's only ever used to clean up garbage.
The net is just a technique to catch a debris. After it is caught, you have many different ways of deorbiting: either the net has a solar sail and deploy it, or it has a small propulsion system and uses it, or if you hook the net to your de-orbiter, you can use the tether as a sling to release the debris in a shorter life orbit while your de-orbiter is raised to another orbit where it can find its next debris (the most promising system, but the sling part will be quite difficult to master)