Scientists hope harpoons can skewer space junk crisis

A European satellite launched this week to try out ways of tackling the growing amount of garbage in space will use technology as familiar to the ancient Romans as astronauts - nets and harpoons.Engineers who have designed and created harpoons for two pioneering space debris clearing projects said the appeal of such time-tested concepts was their simplicity."The irony is not lost on us," said Alastair Wayman, an advanced projects engineer at Airbus Space in the southern English town of Stevenage