Welcome to The Inquiry. I'm Charmaine Cozier. Each week, one question, four experts, and an answer.

Three men are working in a space station around 200 miles above Earth. Suddenly they receive a warning about a threat that could kill them.

It's closing in at over 30,000 miles an hour.

They have 90 minutes before it's due.

The trio moves slowly and silently through a dimly lit white tunnel,

using precious time to lock down metal hatches

and make their way towards a hopefully more secure location.

They climb into a cold, dark, cramped, sealed capsule and wait.

The threat continues towards them.

The deadly deadline arrives and passes.

Then a radio message announces,

collision has been avoided.

It's from mission control.

The American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts on board the International Space

Station are safe. The threat was a fragment from an old weather satellite launched in

1979. Since that near-Miss in 2015, thousands more obsolete objects have been abandoned in space,

increasing the risks of working satellites being damaged or even destroyed.

So this week we're asking, can we solve our space junk problem?

Part 1, the satellite and the syndrome.

Were you always interested in space?

Yes, as a kid, That was my main interest.

In fact, I ended up building a telescope.

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