With the possibility of commercial space travel becoming a reality in the near future, we are facing some serious safety hurdles before the industry “takes off”. Chief among these issues is something called the Kessler Syndrome. Named after a NASA scientist, it’s a theory that as the space around the planet gets more crowded, collisions are more likely to occur, adding even more debris orbiting the globe. If left unchecked, the amount of junk floating around our planet could theoretically block out the sun, let alone make for safe space travel.

If you have ever seen the movie Wall-E, the Kessler syndrome is presented humorously as a rocket blasts through thousands of satellites on its way out of the atmosphere. In reality, if a space vessel were to collide with any orbital trash, the results would be catastrophic. Swiss scientists don’t want this to happen and have decided to do something about it.

Called CleanSpace One, the project developed by the Swiss EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Federale Lausanne) seeks to clean out the area above the Earth by creating a space janitor of sorts. Looking like a long box, CleanSpace One will be able to launch then match the speed and orbital trajectory of its target allowing it to come close enough to latch on to a piece of space junk. From there, it will redirect the piece of debris towards the Earth’s atmosphere, causing it to disintegrate due to the high amounts of heat caused by friction. Think of it as a global incinerator for expensive satellites that are no longer used.

While the plan is an admirable one, it does of course have some issues. The cost of actually building and launching a vehicle like this being one of the most voiced concerns. Right now it would cost around $2.5 billion to launch even one CleanSpace vehicle into orbit, let alone the thousands that would be needed. Also, if something goes wrong during the recovery and disposal process it could actually contribute to the problem it’s trying to address. Nevertheless, the Swiss research team says it could have one ready to go in a few years. By then advances in space technology could actually make the plan feasible