Science fiction could soon become reality as scientists are developing a real-life tractor beam they hope could solve the space junk problem.

First coined by Sci-Fi author E.E. Smith in 1931, a tractor beam is a fictional device that uses a laser or invisible sound wave to move objects from a distance. Since the 1960s the futuristic tech has been a staple of the sci-fi genre, appearing in both the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises.

Some of the most tense moments in sci-fi films see the good guys' spaceship suddenly trapped by a tractor beam that reels them towards their enemies. But inspired by the dramatic scenes, scientists are now working on a real tractor beam, dubbed an electrostatic tractor.

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Instead of being used to trap spaceships, the tech would use electrostatic attraction to move dangerous space junk safely out of the Earth's orbit. The development comes at an integral time, with experts warning that there could soon be so many satellites orbiting Earth they block out the sun or that uncontrolled space junk could damage working spacecraft or even fall to the Earth and put human lives at risk.

But the electrostatic tractor beam could be the answer to the problem. Hanspeter Schaub, an aerospace engineering professor at CU Boulder, told Live Science he was inspired to create a more realistic version of the tractor beam after the first major satellite collision in 2009.

The collision saw an active communications satellite smashing into a derelict Russian military Kosmos 2251, scattering more than 1,800 pieces of debris into Earth's orbit. While no other spacecraft of humans were harmed, it marked a warning of things to come as space gets more crowded and Hanspeter realised he could prevent it from happening again by using the attraction between positively and negatively charged objects to make them "stick" together.

He and his colleagues have now spent a decade working on the concept. The electrostatic tractor would work by using a spacecraft equipped with an electron gun that would fire negatively charged electrons at a dead satellite.

The electrons would give the dead satellite a negative charge while the spacecraft would have a positive charge and the attraction between them would keep them stuck together, even while they were separated by 65 to 100 feet of empty space. Once they're successfully locked together the spacecraft could pull the dead satellite, without needing to touch it, out of orbit and a safe distance from Earth where it could drift forever.

But according to Julian Hammerl, a doctoral student at CU Boulder, the "main difference between sci-fi and reality," is that while the tractor beams in the movies work rapidly, the real-life version would have to move very slowly and could take more than a month to move a single satellite safely away from Earth. The team also have financial hurdles to combat as a prototype could cost millions and a full-scale operational device will likely cost even more but they're convinced it would work.

"The science is pretty much there, but the funding is not," project researcher Kaylee Champion, a doctoral student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder), told Live Science. The electrostatic tractor isn't the only proposed method of space junk removal, experts have also suggested harpoons, giant nets or physical docking systems.

But Julian Hammerl, a doctoral student at CU Boulder claims the other methods could just make the problem worse. "You have these large, dead spacecraft about the size of a school bus rotating really fast, if you shoot a harpoon, use a big net or try to dock with them, then the physical contact can damage the spacecraft and then you are only making the [space junk] problem worse," he explained.

The researchers are currently using a bathtub-sized metal vacuum chamber equipped with an electron gun for experiments simulating the effects of an electrostatic tractor on a smaller scale. If they secure funding the researchers believe a prototype tractor beam could be operational in the next decade.

While it might seem a way off yet, other experts are convinced the tech will work too. "Their technology is still in the infancy stage but I am fairly confident it will work," John Crassidis, an aerospace scientist at the University at Buffalo, who is not involved in the research, said.

He added: "What is today's science fiction could be tomorrow's reality."

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