Space Station & Shuttle Evade Debris

T.Hobbes writes: "There's an article at the BBC about the shuttle had to take evasive maneuvers to avoid the close (5km) transit of some rocket debris, and how the fuel consumed has cut short the shuttle's stay in orbit by one day. NASA also has an article about it." I know that minor maneuvers are common, but this one seems like a rather major move. Anyone want to bet on how long it will be before we have to establish some sort of clean-up effort in space?

Comments

Duh!

[Calle Ballz]

That's what you get when you leave your garbage in orbit! Where'd they think it would go? the moon? Around orbit is just like that place behind your couch where you throw trash, no one sees it but eventually it will become a problem. I dunno what they were thinking.

This is cool

[alen]

For some reason this reminds me of the movie Armageddon.

Star wars

[Yahiko]

Star wars was just a coverup for an intergalactic garbage disposal unit!

Yahiko

Ya know...

[Talisman]

If they would just mount a frickin' laser beam on the Shuttle, this wouldn't be a problem. They should also mount lasers on the ISS. Anything that makes it more like a Death Star is tax money well spent.

Talisman

Suggestion

[Digitalia]

Where's Martha Stewart when you need her? Slap her on a shuttle and send her uip to orbit. Then you'll solve to of our problems at once.

Re:Space Junk

[Waffle Iron]

The problem is that this space junk will collide with other space junk, leading to smaller, faster moving pieces of junk. This small, undetectable junk will smack into good equipment, leading to even more space junk. Before you know it, there's a chain reaction, and near earth orbit becomes an unsuitable wasteland of high velocity particles.

This scenario sounds like a certain late-70's video game. We can effectively solve this problem by installing a hyperspace button on every spacecraft. You just have to assign one of the crew members sit near the button at all times and look out for incoming debris.

Re:They were moving the ISS, not just the shuttle

[rtscts]

What happens if they spot a piece of junk heading at them when a shuttle isn't docked?

Whip out that robot arm (assuming it's working), and BATTER UP!

...what?

[Transcendent]

evasive maneuvers?? Umm... it should be defensive maneuvers, unless it actually attacked the debris at the same time... which uh... i dont think they did...