An Australian sheep farmer discovered a piece of space junk in his paddock. The 3-meter hunk of metal is believed to be part of a jettisoned trunk from the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.

SpaceX is sending a team to evaluate the situation and determine how best to remove it. The jettisoned trunk was intended to burn up in the atmosphere, or at least land in the ocean.

The SpaceX spokesman said, “You have an expected path of where things may come down and this particular debris was within that analyzed space.”

How does this mindset apply to other untended consequences for our debris?

Do we analyze the space where the debris for our actions might land?
How do we determine what is an acceptable path for that debris?
Do we follow up when our debris lands in unintended spaces and offer to clean it up?

When we’re on the receiving end of unintended debris, how do we deal with it? Isn’t acceptable debris just littering we can live with? In the hiking world, the motto is “leave no trace.” If you carried it in, you carry it out (including human waste). No the case in space. More than 27,000 pieces of space junk are tracked by the Department of Defense’s global Space Surveillance Network.

What emotional debris from other people are you still tracking? Can you ask them to clean it up? Can you let it go?