Who takes out the space trash? Space debris is growing, here’s what’s being done about it Episode 2 of ‘Space Curious’ dives into this very topic Updated: Tags: After a spacecraft is no longer serving a purpose, it becomes junk. On a recent episode of “Space Curious,” we talked to experts who know a lot about space junk, and what challenges humans face in cleaning up the messes we make. Daniel Batcheldor is the former head of aerospace physics and space sciences at Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne. As an astrophysicist, Batcheldor said when people think of space debris, they might be picturing a scene out of the 2008 Pixar movie “Wally.”