Thanks to human intervention, pollution and overcrowding are rapidly stripping outer space of its tranquil and clean ambience. Since the dawn of space age heralded with the launch of Soviet Sputnik in 1957, there has been a phenomenal growth in launch activities, resulting in the littering of near earth orbit with space debris. In the rapidly piling up space junkyard, there are fragments of satellites and launch vehicles, nuts, bolts, electronics devices as well as cameras, screw drivers, food cans and oxygen cylinders left behind by astronauts.

  Not surprisingly then, sometime back, a top ranking US official associated with space and defence activities of the country, had noted that there has been a massive hike in the volume of space debris over the last five years on account of a steady growth in launch activities. Incidentally, the Chinese anti satellite test carried out in early 2007 along with a 2009 collision between a defunct Russian....