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Transforming Orbit Into A Wasteland
I found an article (Yes, the article is now 404) in the CNN Space section this morning, talking about a recent report at a UN Conference on space. The author of the reporter alleges that programs like Star Wars and the like would basically turn LEO ? into a "wasteland" for satellites for decades or even centuries. And the wonderful part is that NASA's Off ice for Orbital Debris will close in October, due to budget cuts, despite 10s of thousands of already existing debris. Yah. Have fun with space tourism!Update: 04/23 19:14 GMT by H : It appears that the CNN article was pulled - I can't seem to find it - but Space.com had another report on the subject. And Space.com has also the updated story that CNN was linking to - and the update may be why it was pulled, because it appears that the Office for Space Debris may have some salvation yet.
Page Not Found!
a swarm of orbiting bolts around your planet to protect it against an alien invasion.
I'm fairly convinced that if the military was planning on placing weapons in space, they would have thought this through enough to see this may be a problem. And, I'm also sure that they'll find a solution too.
..and on your left you can thousands of chunks of space debris hurtling towards us. The smaller chunks burst into beautiful firework displays as they hit the windows of our touring craft.. the larger chunks? Well, lets just say thats why we had you sign all those forms before you took this tour.
air and light and time and space
If someone launched several nukes at the US, and the US (lacking an interceptor system) launched a retaliatory strike, would we give a damn about the condition of low earth orbit?
Best Slashdot Co
It looks like it's high time for a return of my favorite series... ;-)
d /9 782/salvage1.html
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpa
mabye someone should start thinking about developing a technology for picking up trash in orbit... or at least knocking it out of orbit selectively... sounds like well need it...
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
Everywhere man goes, they literaly trash the place. sad.
"The author of the reporter alleges that programs like Star Wars and the like would basically turn LEO into a 'wasteland' for satellites for decades or even centuries."
The article actually said that if other countries responded to programs like Star Wars by dumping tiny bits of space junk (gravel, marbles, or the like) to destroy satelites, causeing more space junk and destroying more satelites, etc, etc then the result would be a LEO wasteland. Putting a satellite in orbit doesn't necessarily increase space debris. Attacking satellites in orbit, on the other hand, does.
-- Adam
NASA's Off ice for Orbital Debris will close in October, due to budget cuts, despite 10s of thousands of already existing debris
That office tracks particles LESS THAN 1cm large in space.
Anything bigger is tracked by another office in the agency, and funding hasn't been cut on that office.
NASA should build that giant hoover ship from Spaceballs and clean up a bit in orbit. Maybe one of the backstreet boys will volunteer to become Dark Helmet.
For the military, why would this be a problem? Not every country has the radar network and detection equipment necessary to safely avoid this minefield of satellite debris. The kill ratio would still be unbelievably high, but in a war situation, confusing the playing ground with lots of tiny kill vehicles would be sure to raise hell with the opponents space platforms.
This would play badly for humans in space, for sure... I'm not saying this is a good thing, only that it could be leveraged by a defensive or antagonistic military force. Drop a few marbles in an orbit liable to intersect a KH satellite, and whammo, less communication bandwidth over afghanistan.
And the wonderful part is that NASA's Off ice for Orbital Debris will close in October, due to budget cuts, despite 10s of thousands of already existing debris.
Maybe I'm a bit out of touch, but this seems like a REALLY bad idea to me. I mean shouldn't SOMEBODY be tracking all that junk?
Keep Austin Weird!
The page does not seem to exists on CNN anymore. At least I could not find it on CNN or via Google in a 5 min search.
"You have the option of insanity. I do not. And that makes me crazy!" - Brian to Angela, My So-Called Life
Spacewalking
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
This may not hurt us, but later generations will have one fat pickle on their hands. It's ironic that our government was considering opening up Anwar to oil drilling just in case, but won't take steps to lessen space debris. Space travel will be one of the biggest industries we've ever seen. We should do something to help it blossom. Maybe we should tell the higher-ups that there is oil on the moon. HUGE amounts of it filling the center like a big truffle. Then we'd have efficient space travel and a clean LEO in like, 24 hours.
snow
Crystal Meth: Would you ingest somthing made from a poisonous gas and an explosive metal? You do it every day -- Salt!
Given a choice between nuclear weapons hitting you
and having a bunch of junk in LEO, which would you choose?
Yup... Space pollution began in earnest in 1961 when the Westford needles program INTENTIONALLY launched hundreds of thousands of short wires into Low Earth Orbit. It was an attempt to build a passive antenna for communication.
Didn't work, but we still have lots of orbiting bits of wire from the Kennedy era.
On the otherer hand, if they launch a few pounds of gravel into space before the nuclear attack, they will disable the "interceptior system" much the same way that the unmonitored debris will soon be disabling celphone sattelites.
And who, in this modern world, is truly liable to launch "a few" nukes at the US??
If the condition of low earth orbit is what caused the lack of an interception system, I would certainly care about its condition. I think the idea is that something should be done about it now rather than when the nukes start flying back and forth.
There are also a number of reports of the shuttle having to maneuver away from debris, such as here, its worth noting that the warning came from "U.S. Space Command", i.e. NORAD, not NASA's orbital debris office.
So some NASA PHB may think that NORAD's tracking is sufficient, and the money is better spent keeping the billion dollar dinosaur shuttle program flying...
you allready managed to /. yourself ;)
It's a sad truth I have recently come to realize: Manned Space exploration as a major human endeavor is basically dead.
The left has no interest in it, since space exploration has no apparent humanitarian value. The right has no interest (outside of defense) since it's a money pit. And the private sector has no interest in it since there's no obvious way to make a profit from it.
If access to orbit somehow became cheap enough to be afforable to those who operate under different motivations and priorities, this might change, but given current aerospace and cultural trends I dont see that happening anytime soon.
Yes, they track things less than 1 CM, but if I went up, I'd be hoping they knew where it all ways- space debris travels at hundreds of miles an hour and could cous a tremendous amount of damage to any space craft it hits.
How long does it take for LEO orbits to degrade?
Eventually, would'nt this junk just fall into the atmosphere and burn up?
The Internet is generally stupid
"And the wonderful part is that NASA's Off ice for Orbital Debris will close in October, due to budget cuts, despite 10s of thousands of already existing debris"
NORAD and Space Command will most likely continue tracking debris.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
To the AeroGel solution? create a gigantic (1KM square) "sponge" to sweep up the crap and then deorbit into a nice fireball?
I remember hearing about that back in 1996-1997 on Beyond2000 on Discovery... a show that was the best they ever made and cancelled... Oh boy more fish/animal/cop shows.... yay...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
There goes two of the most reliable sources on the planet. i rank this one right up there with gobal warming and the plight of the palestinians.
Great idea! Why don't you (notice I said "you" and not "the Government" because I see you are a libertarian) just write a nifty lil' number-cruncher that runs behind a screen saver and tracks a finite set of space junk particles. If you aren't a coder, could you at least provide the $$$ or the organization skillz to make this a sourceforge project (imagine: spacejunk.sourceforge.net)? The server could run on some *n?x O/S so we won't lose all of our satellites every time someone gets a BSOD, but the particle matrix could be distributed to Win clients for greater coverage. Do you live in Europe? Maybe it could be 100% metric so we could avoid the rare problems that seem to plague NASA in the rightist media.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
"Putting a satellite in orbit doesn't necessarily increase space debris"
actually it does, the article at space.com says
"Small junk, some of it created by rocket explosions, can rip holes in a spacecraft or disable a satellite by causing electrical shorts that result from clouds of superheated gas, called plasma, that are sometimes generated in an impact."
so just the process of putting a satellite in orbit creates junk travelling at 22,000 mph
yeah, I realy enjoyed "Beyond 2000", "Next Step" and "invention" I wish they had not canceled them.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign' have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?
From the FAQ on the NASA Site:
8). Does the U.S. Space Shuttle have to dodge orbital debris?
Whenever a Space Shuttle is in orbit, the U.S. Space Command regularly examines the trajectories of orbital debris to identify possible close encounters. If another object is projected to come within a few kilometers of the Space Shuttle, the Space Shuttle will normally maneuver away from the object, even though the chances of a collision are only approximately 1 in 100,000. This occurs infrequently, about once every year or two.
This seems to me to be a pretty small problem in the greater scheme of things, and if the Space Shuttle only has to dodge once or twice a year, we're doing pretty good so far.
Of course, the point raised by NASA is just that we're doing ok provided that we continue to be aware of space junk and create our rockets and spacecraft and satellites in such manners as to reduce and/or prevent space debris. If the office closes, likely they'll keep someone at a radar somewhere to prevent the Shuttle and ISS and such from whacking a random chunk of hardware.
Blog,Twitter
Stop being paranoid. You are far more likely to be run over by a stampeding elephant outside your house than you currently are of being struck by space debris (assuming you were in space).
If you could collect all of the crap floating around in in orbit it probably wouldn't even fill a small landfill. You drive around in a car don't you? Rush hour traffic is a tad more congested than orbit is or will be in the distant future.
Those are great scary little pictures that they put up showing all the garbage forming a ring around the Earth. Of course those dots are probably 1000000 times larger than they are in real life, but they do a good job of scaring people.
Naturally these things need to be tracked but only for determining new orbits that need to be taken. By the time a cleanup is really needed technology will be able to present a viable solution. I don't see the point in spending millions/billions a year trying to solve it now and it certainly isn't worth losing sleep over.
it seems we have the same atitude towards space we had towards our waterways and oceans just a few years ago, i.e. it's a great big dump. If you can't see it, who cares? Wait until the shuttle cacthes a hunk of debris through the windshield, or when space tourism catches on (it will! it will!) and the area directly around Earth looks like Coney Island after a busy weekend. Charming.
WRT Global Thermonuclear War, the only way to win is not to play.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
There is some real danger here. Micrometorites and space debries hurdling at thousands of feet per second can punch a hole through an astronaught, the space shuttle, and a communications satilite without breaking a sweat. We need to protect our astronaughts and our communications network from further damage by cleaning up the Earth's orbit!
On a side note...could we look at other planets for similar halos of space cr** to detect an intelligent race? Maybe.....
(CNN) -- The use of weapons in space could fill the area near Earth with so much debris that satellites could not safely function for centuries or longer, warns a report to the United Nations.
As part of the so-called "Star Wars" program, the U.S. military envisions powerful lasers and intercept missiles in orbit to protect against enemy missile attacks on Earth.
But such high-tech defenses, as well as low-tech countermeasures, could transform low-Earth orbits into a veritable wasteland, according to physicist Joel Primack, who presented the report last week at a U.N. conference.
"Even one war in space will [encase] the entire planet in a shell of whizzing debris that will thereafter make space near the Earth highly hazardous for peaceful as well as military purposes," wrote Primack and co-author Nancy Ellen Abrams.
Moreover, even the prelude to such a battle could prove catastrophic, the two University of California, Santa Cruz, researchers said.
And hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of futuristic military equipment could be rendered useless with a cheap and common material.
"No actual space war even has to be fought," Primack and Abrams said. "Any country that felt threatened by America's starting to place lasers or other weapons in space would only have to launch the equivalent of gravel to destroy the sophisticated weaponry."
A swarm of millions of floating rocks could disable helpless satellites, breaking down existing pieces of space junk and setting off an escalating chain of destructive collisions.
Even tiny fragments could do serious damage. They can go as fast as 17,000 mph (27,000 kilometers per hour), 10 times faster than a rifle bullet. A marble at that speed could hit a satellite with as much force as a one-ton safe dropped three stories.
The Bush administration would like to deploy some Star Wars weapons in low-Earth orbit, an already crowded zone between 200 to 500 miles (320 to 800 kilometers) above the Earth's surface, Primack said. Such systems would not be deployed until later this decade or beyond.
Scientists estimate that debris higher than 500 miles (800 kilometers) will remain aloft for decades before falling into the Earth's atmosphere. Pieces more than 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) high will stay in orbit for hundreds of years, and those more than 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) indefinitely.
The U.S. Space Command, part of the Air Force, monitors more than 9,000 pieces of space junk 4 inches (10 centimeters) in diameter or larger, many of them loose bolts and exploded rocket fragments.
NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office tracks smaller pieces of debris, which can still pose risks to spacecraft and satellites. But according to United Press International, the office will close in October due to budget cuts.
a Giant used all AeroGel for his shaving...
The Canadian Discovery Channel had a program on about such a thing, in the show the referred to it as the "Cascade Effect." One piece of debris hit another that made three or more then those pieces hit more and so on.
Oh yes :)
Install it now, its quick and fast
Note : Its mac os classic and not os X
Found another item to add to the duh folder:
Gates: Penalties may hurt Windows
Most of those "type" of shows would be on the Science Channel, formerly Discovery-Science, and Discovery Wings.
Image
You really need to post gawth lyrics for your page widening posts. You know...like in zeee Temple of Love...of love...la la la!
Anyways, keep up the good Sisters of Mercy page widening posts.
Three points here.
1. I was chairing an AAAS conference in Washington on Moving Industry Into Space, in January of 1982, and only 2 of the 5 speakers had shown up at 10 minutes before the start of the 3 hour session. The third was delayed in transit and the forth cancelled because both transponders had failed the night before on the communications satellite that was his business. The fifth turned out to be speaking at a conference in Europe and had not even told me he would not be coming.
Sitting in the second row was someone I had never met but thought I recognized. I introduced mself, confirmed that he was whom I though he was, explained the situation and asked if he would speak. He agreed and gave a 15 minute adlib on the need for and value of a garbage collection business to clean up Low Earth Orbit. His name was Dr. Isaac Asimov. So, this is not a new issue.
2. Years ago I studied the opportunities for space commecialization and came to the conclusion that Communications Satellites (given to us by Arthur C. Clarke, no patent applied for) and LEO Tourism were the only two that were practical in the forseeable future.
Power transmission and manufacturing of pharmaceutical, etc have been talked about and even tried, but, much as I'd like to see them happen, they don't seem practical. Communications and Tourism still seem to be the only things with commerial potential for LEO.
If NASA stops tracking the garbage, FUD will keep most people from considering a trip to LEO, even when the costs come down somewhat.
3. NASA has never wanted competition. When they submitted the original tender for the original (post Skylab) Space Station, one of the firm provisions was that all items had to be transported via their Space Shuttle. Space is theirs and theirs alone. All others are NOT WELCOME.
Twenty years ago I submitted a proposal to them that would give them a space station with 25,000 cubic foot of 'shirtsleeve living room', using only 2 Shuttle Launches. The "artist's sketch" (actually, an acrylic) still hangs on my wall and is dated 1982. I'm not expecting a call any time soon. When I tried to pay NASA to launch a "proof of concept", I was told, "We are not ready yet. Maybe some time in the future."
I read the article this morning as well, and it was bunk.
Let's say that missiles are inbound to the US. Right now, LEO would be fine, and the US would be toast. So let's say that the US builds a strategic ABM system - mostly if not completely land-based on the interceptor side - which can take out a warhead immediately prior to deorbit. Now let's say that the incoming missiles have countermeasures, so that they are spreading even more junk around. Well, the best possible result is that the ABM system is still capable of taking out the incoming warheads, preventing major US cities from becoming piles of radioactive debris. But LEO is now junked up? So what? It's preferable that we have to figure out how to clean up LEO - or even that we lose the use of LEO - than that we lose even one city. Moreover, that debris is on a path to deorbit quickly, so there is not even a likelihood of cluttering up LEO for a long period of time.
Now let's take the other scenario presented: someone decides to deny LEO by spreading large amounts of gravel or similar in order to take out a space-based weapons platform. Any nation capable of doing that is also somewhat dependent on LEO and would thus be cutting off their noses to spite their faces. On top of that, if the intent is to take out a space-based defense in order to let the missiles through, wouldn't you want to do that in such a way that you didn't prevent the missiles from getting through? (Gravel sufficient to make LEO a "wasteland" is also sufficient to block practical use of ICBMs and probably also IRBMs, MRBMs and SLBMs.)
Bunk, I tell you. Total bunk.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Beyond 2000 wasn't cancelled until after they dumbed it down and made it extra flashy and shiny. That was too bad.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
What would that do about existing phase 2 satellites? I mean there are lots of them up there that are still useful - like a lot of the amateur radio satellites (which I use once in a while), iridium and spy satellites.
...using lunar power to create neutrino oscillations to destroy the junk... see, /. has all the answers...
"Hello, ladies and gentlemen. We've now entered Low Earth Orbit, and our pilot, Roberto, is just adjusting the horizontal lift for your comfort. You may soon order drinks from the steward once the pilot has given the proper signal. Outside your window on your left you'll see the- OH MY GOD!! NOOOOOOO!"
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
...is what this reminds me of. Do your search on Amazon, read it and you will see why.
--AP
So was this article pulled because it pointed out that anyone with the ability to launch a big enough rocket could potentially eliminate a large portion of the US military's advantage?
Just get an idea of the rough trajectory of LEO spy satellites, shoot up a rocket at the right moment, and blow up a modest charge to spray BB's into a wide swath of space.
Figure if you could launch just 1 million BB's and spread them out with a velocity of maybe just 60km/hr - creating a sphere 2km across in one minute, with a surface area of 12MsqMeter, you've got 1 BB for every 12sq meters, and if the satellite goes through both sides of the sphere and has a profile of just 4sq meters, you've got a 2/3 chance of holing it, maybe a 1/3 chance of severe damage via internal spray of debris over sensitive components.
And if you're a bit more sophisticated, you could launch those BB's into orbit. It might take days or weeks - but with that much new debris added to the same rough orbital altitude as a spy-sat, the chances of an encounter are pretty good.
Yep, I'd be worried about Iraq getting this bright idea - except after they analyzed their last war and the sort of tricks that the Yugoslavians played on us, I'd bet they've already come up with it.
I'd also hope the US is busily launching hardened spy satellites with enough internal armor and redundancy to take a couple of hits.
It'll probably mean the end of Commercial use of Space if they really go at it - the insurance rates for launches will be too high. Another good thing brought to you by the fine foreign entanglement folks in Washington. I sure wouldn't want to be on the sitting station - I mean space duck - I mean space station if/when Bush decides to go into Iraq.
(CNN) -- The use of weapons in space could fill the area near Earth with so much debris that satellites could not safely function for centuries or longer, warns a report to the United Nations.
As part of the so-called "Star Wars" program, the U.S. military envisions powerful lasers and intercept missiles in orbit to protect against enemy missile attacks on Earth.
But such high-tech defenses, as well as low-tech countermeasures, could transform low-Earth orbits into a veritable wasteland, according to physicist Joel Primack, who presented the report last week at a U.N. conference.
"Even one war in space will [encase] the entire planet in a shell of whizzing debris that will thereafter make space near the Earth highly hazardous for peaceful as well as military purposes," wrote Primack and co-author Nancy Ellen Abrams.
Moreover, even the prelude to such a battle could prove catastrophic, the two University of California, Santa Cruz, researchers said.
And hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of futuristic military equipment could be rendered useless with a cheap and common material.
"No actual space war even has to be fought," Primack and Abrams said. "Any country that felt threatened by America's starting to place lasers or other weapons in space would only have to launch the equivalent of gravel to destroy the sophisticated weaponry."
A swarm of millions of floating rocks could disable helpless satellites, breaking down existing pieces of space junk and setting off an escalating chain of destructive collisions.
Even tiny fragments could do serious damage. They can go as fast as 17,000 mph (27,000 kilometers per hour), 10 times faster than a rifle bullet. A marble at that speed could hit a satellite with as much force as a one-ton safe dropped three stories.
The Bush administration would like to deploy some Star Wars weapons in low-Earth orbit, an already crowded zone between 200 to 500 miles (320 to 800 kilometers) above the Earth's surface, Primack said. Such systems would not be deployed until later this decade or beyond.
Scientists estimate that debris higher than 500 miles (800 kilometers) will remain aloft for decades before falling into the Earth's atmosphere. Pieces more than 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) high will stay in orbit for hundreds of years, and those more than 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) indefinitely.
The U.S. Space Command, part of the Air Force, monitors more than 9,000 pieces of space junk 4 inches (10 centimeters) in diameter or larger, many of them loose bolts and exploded rocket fragments.
NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office tracks smaller pieces of debris, which can still pose risks to spacecraft and satellites. But according to United Press International, the office will close in October due to budget cuts.
oh realy!!! they have new ones on Discovery science!!!! cool
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Hey, there's worse ways to go. On second you're sitting in orbit, the next, you're a cloud of ionized atoms.
Nobody seemed to like my little word problem a couple weeks ago about Saddam wanting to get two tons of BB's into orbit. Eh. Good thing the Israelis snuffed Gerald Bull.
"It was meant for long-range attack and also to blind spy satellites. Our scientists were seriously working on that. It was designed to explode a shell in space that would have sprayed a sticky material on the satellite and blinded it." -- The high-ranking Iraqi defector Gen. Hussein Kamel al-Majeed
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The reason the office was closed is that their previous attempts to clean up had failed.
Their plan involved using nanoships to blast the debris away. Unfortunately whenever they shot them, they broke into two smaller pieces. NASA claims that difficult controls and the offices inability to use hyperspace to evade debris were two of the main reasons for failure.
I was wondering if someone had actually archived it before it got pulled. Is there a good resource for these type of things? I've got a few pages that are historically relevant that should go in a large archive somewhere. Yeah, archive.org is *way* to slow to get anything except slow moving pages. Google's much better, but it doesn't get the very fast pages, and I don't know a good way to search their cache for specific pages.
:)
Btw, AC, your image link doesn work
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL
LEO = Low Earth Orbit
Much of the missile defense efforts are currently going into ground and airborne defense systems. While not nearly as sexy as space-based systems, they will most likely be the only system that will be deployed in the short-term. These systems will be used to destroy theater ballistic missiles, similar to the Scud during the Gulf War '91.
1) LOE's are UNSTABLE, they decay without station keeping.
2) The area of low earth orbits is CONSIDERABLY greater then the surface of the earth. You're talking about a miniscule amount of stuff spread over an area several times that of the earth's surface!
3) They have already devised 'bumper' systems for small particle collisions.
4) MOST particles are traveling in the same direction as you are, therefore relative velocies are low.
... at least under the terms you mention.
If access to orbit somehow became cheap enough to be afforable to those who operate under different motivations and priorities,
Who had you in mind? NGOs or political or religious groups perhaps? People who put ideology first, often beyond well-being? Hmmm.... seems to me I might be fairly happy leaving space in the hands of on-going governments (who have some interest in not allowing too many destructive shenanigans to go on) and business (for whom a profit motive and public outcry are powerful controls).
I'm not looking forward to the day that space becomes so accessible that any splinter group with an oddball ideology can get there. Something tells me our currently not terribly stable world will then become significantly less stable. And safe.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
And the funny thing is, Star Wars isn't even all that effective, according to some stories I've seen. No links right now, sorry.
Could someone who knows more about this please explain to me why space debris is a problem? I know that there is a tremendous amount of drag from the upper upper atmosphere, especially in LEO, and I know that if you don't regularly keep pushing satellites up every now and then, they will eventually spiral in and burn up in the atmosphere. Isn't the same true for space debris? Even if it's a small object, those speeds mean drag and all this clutter should be falling back in and burning up. Is this not how it really is?
The recent space.com article says,
NASA estimates there are 4 million pounds of junk orbiting Earth. More than half the impacting debris is manmade
This implies that 40% or so of the debris in orbit is of natural origin.
Which would mean that Earth has hundreds or thousands of tiny natural satellites (moons) that they never taught me about in school.
Is this just simple misreporting? Or does Earth have little moons that went undiscovered until NASA started tracking space debris?
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Whereas I don't entirely disagree with your point, I will say: 1) The only nuclear weapons ever delivered against a hostile nation were by plane. 2) That was a long time ago.
You say it is quite easy to destroy a satellite interceptor system. That makes a number of assumptions such as their inability to defend themselves versus countermeasures, our inability to identify countermeasures launches and undertake alternate measures of our own, and the inability of said satellites to manouver. Also, it assumes we don't have a whacking lot of them up there, thus making degrading the system possible but not eliminating it. Right now, any and all opinion on how easy or hard this is all falls under the category speculation. No one has deployed an interceptor system and no one has demonstrated countermeasures to such a system. So we're all just shooting the breeze.
As for the ease of deploying nuclear attacks other than ICBMs, I think you will find current developments in point, zone, and theatre defense will make plane and low-level missile attacks less effectual. And suitcase nukes, despite how allegedly easy they are to deploy, have NEVER been detonated in a population center or upon a military target to my knowledge. Perhaps this isn't as easy as you think?
Not saying the money couldn't be spent elsewhere, nor that this isn't likely to be Pork Barrel city, but almost everything about space warfare is conjectural at this point. Only time and tactical deployment of some of these systems will truly prove the point.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
I know! And that arrogant planet Saturn has the nerve to show off!! Those rings around it how long have they been there?? ...millions, billions of years??? Someone should put Saturn in it's place. Damn you Saturn!!!
It seems that having high powered lasers in space would be great for a space-junk cleanup. Turn the beam to wide angle, fire it up, and incinerate or knock down (heat up one side of an item, let it outgass on that side and it may go down) the little bits... voila, clean space.
And the military would justify this by calling it weapons testing.
- AZ
Don't forget, putting men in space, breaking the sound barrier, desktop computers, the internet, were all considered 'impossible' once!
The nice people at Autodesk, thinking far into the future back in 1987, invested in a project to commercialize orbitting space debris. After all, wouldn't the government attempt to solve the problem in the most expensive, least expensive way?
9 .h tml#3493
http://www.fourmilab.to/autofile/www/chapter2_5
...is this: Yes a bullet moving 15000 mph could do some damage (to the limit of the materials in the bullet). But isn't the shuttle (in the same orbit) moving at the same (or near same) speed, ergo no real differential?
If so, isn't the danger window then only entering or leaving orbit, or changing orbit because of the delta vee between currently orbiting debris and the shuttle?
Or am I missing something fundamental about how these debris are a menace?
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
Your assumption that space travel will be a huge industry assumes:
1) There is any economic or political or military benefit to a manned presence
2) The problems (risks) of space travel are overcome
In both cases, you are talking about non-trivial cases.
If UberCorps can't even find a way to make wireless or broadband pay off, then space is so far from being viable economically that it isn't funny. And as for tourism.... if a trip to orbit eats up a day or two, subjects me to multiple gravities of acceleration and has me vomiting in zero-G, plus exposes me to other health risks and other risks to life and limb (not all of us are astronaut material boys and girls!), then am I real likely to want to shell out $20K or more (assuming super cheap space transport) for it? I mean people other than us few Star Wars junkies?
I don't think most of us will see affordable space tourism or economic exploitation of space within our lifetimes. I'd imagine the former is at least 40-75 years away, and the latter at least as long in any kind of large scale fasion.
But it is nice to sit around and daydream about it, just like the guys in the 50s who predicted we'd be living on moon cities by 2000.... and about as likely....
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
Che: "Couldn't you just launch a bunch of huge super powerful magnets into orbit to suck up all that debris? I mean, wouldn't a magnet have a really powerful effect on all those little metal bits in a vacuum?"
Che's roommate: "dude, are you posting on slashdot stoned again?"
That's one of the most useful explanations of the danger I've seen yet. Kind of like the old Hot Wheels Criss-Cross-Crash track. Things moving in the same difference at the same speed are no threat, but junk crossing fast on an oblique course can really ruin your day. Merci buckets for the good post!
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
Follow Jon Katz' Example! Promote your cause on Slashdot now! And mod up this comment -- if Katz deserves free advertising, so does this comment!
/usr/share/dict/words on BSDs /usr/share/dict/propernames on BSDs
a bc /
/ooieiabdcdjsvbkeldfogjhiyeeejkagclmieooion oepdk /
This FAQ is designed to give tips on trolling on Slashdot, created in celebration of Blackout Week. It is dedicated to all hard-working trolls and crapflooders.
What are some good trolling tips?
Trolling is all about making people think you care, and so winding up those who care for real. Think of it like shooting a deer in front of an anti-hunt protester, or eating a Big Mac in front of a vegan. Here are some ideas for making your troll work:
1. To start off, make sure your post gets noticed -- log in, post early (after 50 +1 comments have been posted to an article, forget it), and make sure to use your +1 bonus.
2. Ensure your posting history doesn't show a history of dubious posts. Some advise (incorrectly) to stagger your trolls, but this is in fact time wasting and only helps Slashdot in the long run. If you have a doubt, just create a new account, or even post anonymous -- an effective troll, posted early enough, will gain a +1 quickly.
3. Learn from the marketing droids -- a mixture of truth and lies leaves the potential client without a clue as to which is which. Geeks smell pure bullshit, because it reminds them of their bedroom smell (see also "karma whoring" below).
4. Follow up. Keep a window open on your troll, and reload to see if people bite. Perhaps post an AC reply agreeing or disagreeing with your own post. Reply to later posts referring to your earlier post to back up your point.
5. If you get a dreaded (-1, Troll), don't be ashamed to post the well-known, "Mods on Crack!" rant. Explain, rationally, and not as yourself why you agree with the original post, and why it's a fair point.
How do I crapflood?
A crapflood is an (intentionally) content-free post. Here are some suggestions for the source of your crapflood -- remember to take care with repetition, odd characters, or repetition, to get past the lameness filter:
1. your local dictionary file, e.g.
2. your local real names file, e.g.
3. a copy-paste part of a web page (for extra amusement, copy-paste from Slashdot itself)
4. a UU-encoded newsgroup file
5. some output from a lorem ipsum generator
6. examples of your latest spams, particularly those in Korean
7. allowing your cat to walk across the keyboard for a few minutes.
How do I widen pages?
A method is known and delivered to us by the beautiful Klerck which currently works in Internet Explorer alone. This will therefore ruin the browsing experience of by far the majority of Slashdot readers. Start with the text:
http://www.eveeieyhfgfcdoosammgwsnboivvbsczxlzg
then repeat
several times, remembering to avoid the compression filter trap by using different random characters.
How do I karma whore?
"Karma whoring" is the practice of gaining moderation points for their own sake. It is particularly useful in techniques for defeating the moderation system. Some tips for karma whoring are:
1. If the site containing the actual article is not on a fast server (i.e. is not a "big site"), re-post the article with subject, "the article -- in case the site gets slashdotted". Make sure this comes as early as possible in the list of comments, to avoid the dreaded (-1, Redundant).
2. If any article pops up on Microsoft, write a stock two paragraphs explaining why Microsoft is immoral, and why the event described cannot happen with Free Software. I shall not supply text, because tests have shown that moderators are not completely stupid, and can identify duplicate posts (this is actually helpful in defeating the moderation system, see below).
3. For any article discussing a particular company, state that you worked there, and offer your "inside knowledge". Note that geeks do visit Slashdot, so do not fall into the trap of being too obvious a fraud -- a mistake made by such amateur trolls as PhysicsGenius, who must now suffer a life of instant down-modding.
How do I defeat the moderation system?
The moderation system is far from flawless. Here are some ways to devalue it:
1. If you have moderator points, for goodness sake abuse them! How about moderating up a First Post, a crapflood, or best of all, this very FAQ? It would be a crime to allow such an easily abused system to work.
2. Copy the text of another person's post, and paste it as a reply to an earlier post. Most people read oldest messages first, so they will consider yours to be the first message, and the later message to be "redundant". This is great for annoying karma whores.
3. Vote Troll posts as "underrated", thus increasing their exposure without running the risk of having your moderation rights revoked.
How do I defeat authentication?
Don't. The FBI will arrest you for being a terrorist. Instead, make an authoritative nick like CmdrTaco (editor). The majority of people are easily fooled, and will be likely to take notice of and respond to your post, and even moderate it up. Think of it like Lunix Turvalds walking into the room -- people listen to what he has to say, and don't dare disagree.
How do I defeat the goatse link early warning system?
Simple -- use one of the many foolishly implemented redirector URLs hosted on well-known sites. Here's an innocuous recent example which pretends to link to the highly informative about.com, but in fact links to a site of the popular 90's lesbian band The Spice Girls: Informative link which will get me karma [about.com]
What are some excellent sites to sneakily link to?
Mostly, you should link to gay porn. If you are reading this FAQ, you already know the URLs, so I don't need to supply them, except to say that it's almost an initiation ceremony in Slashdot trolling to link to goatse [goatse.cx].
Administrativa
How do I justify the existence of this FAQ?
Slashdot is full of people who support unlicensed weapons ownership and dissemination of bomb creation documents -- in short, they support freedom, even when that freedom could cause harm. This document should be considered as that very freedom in action. Indeed, to disparage or moderate down this document would be un-American, and the FBI are likely to arrest you for being a terrorist.
How do I add to or change this FAQ?
Simply re-post the FAQ on Slashdot, adding an appropriate question, and incrementing the version number by 1. Before doing so, please try to ensure you have the latest version, and remember to keep this post W3C compliant!
How else can I help with the Troll and Crapflooding Cause?
Moderate this post up, re-post it, put it in your journal, and upload it on your website. Thanks!
There is no point left in space for politicians, and no one else will supply the huge needed amount of money.
For politicians, there are exactly two reasons to explore space:
1) Military. You don't need anyone alive in orbit for this. The only things you need are lots of small satellites. Even if there is some exploration in this area, the public will rarely find out. Fortuanetly, there are a couple of exceptions (GPS, even though in no way exploration of space).
2) Public opinion. All money NASA has are pumped into the Space Station. Why? It has very little scientific value - the only thing I can imagine doing there is biology without gravity. However, lots of people know about it as the Big Thing. So, they are willing to elect the politicians who support the ISS.
The times of space needed for The Public Opiniton are passing, however, as well. Duting the Cold War, space was extremly important to both sides - show 'em we're better. Also, space was the New Big Thing for the people. So, both in the US and USSR space got as much money as it needed. Men were in space, and then on the moon. Shuttle and Proton were developed, and they still fly today. Nothing better was developed for 50 years (for Proton).
Now however, the times have passed. As Cold War ended, space stopped being one of the first military priorities. People cooled down towards space, as it became explored enough for them. The great need of exciting people about their country has passed, too. Not being the first priority, space can't get the huge funds it needs. And people who can pay want it to pay back. How will a spacecraft to Pluto pay me my $n million?
So, Pluto is passing by, but no one cares. I don't think there are going to be men on Mars in many years. To send men to Mars you need a cold war.
...it's reasonably reasonable.
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
is a vacuum cleaner!
Say, a multi-ply sphere about the size of the ancient Echo balloon/satellites, in a polar orbit.
The multiple plies absorb impact energy and allow the debris to be caught within the sphere. By the time the shell of the sphere has disintegrated, the pile of accumulated debris will have lost enough speed for the whole thing to de-orbit.
Maybe.
to capture starduste l.html
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/tech/aerog
Gizmos Gagets For Ninjas
How is using raw materials from space cheaper? You have to send humans or really high-tech machines to the moon. 1)Mine the materials 2)Create the steel beams 3)Launch the beams off the moon 4)Then put them in orbit directly for a satelite. This seems a little more expensive to me than buying steel beams right here on Earth.
...would a single N'Sync member's corpse really make that much of a difference?
Let's see...
. 7E 5)^3)=1.8653e+020 m^3
The radius of the earth is 6.371e+6 m. The volume is therefore (4/3)*pi*R^3=1.0832e+021 m^3.
If we calculate the volume of a sphere whose radius matches the upper boundary of the LEO and subtract the volume of a sphere whose radius matches the lower boundary of the LEO, we get:
((4/3)*pi*(6.371E6+5E5)^3)-((4/3)*pi*(6.371E6+1
...which gives us the volume of the LEO. Now, how much of this is currently occupied by debris?
Let's assume there's 50,000 pieces of debris, and each one averages the volume of a 5m x 5m x5m cube. This gives a total debris volume of 6250000 m^3. Guess what? That amounts to exactly 3.3507e-014 of the total volume. That means we'd have to put up 15 trillion times more debris to full up HALF of the LEO. Nice try, guys, but I'm not going to start panicking yet.
They're probably talking about small (i.e. a few centimeters) asteroids which were caught by the earth's gravity well.
So nothing exciting to see here, especially since the current orbiting asteroids will burn up in a few years and more come in every minute. Any celestial body has a lot of junk flying around it.
Build a system of robots that finds debris, cuts it up, hauls it to a refuse station, and reduces it to a reusable form.
You use three types of robots.
Many small mobile bots (solar powered and ion-engine driven) find space debris and boost it to collecting spots.
The second type chops up debris and boosts it to stable higher orbits. More of the second type intersect at the higher orbit and bring debris to the third type, which
vaporizes the debris (no big deal in space with unlimited solar power and no atmosphere), charges the vapor, and shoots the charged vapor down a long tube with a magnetic system designed to act like a big mass spectrometer, separating the vapor by composition and leaving hunks of iron, silicon, etc.
Or use a low tech but more high maintenance design and spin the stuff to separate it. Either way you've got raw materials enough to say, triple the speed they're building the ISS with even the junk materials usable for shielding.
Seems to me that this system could be built by graduate students from a school like Carnegie-Mellon for five or six million dollars, tops.
Notes:If you think that solar power is too wimpy consider that with two or three hundred collectors in orbit it's no big deal if it takes a given collector six months to bring in a load. Also, the collectors can be programmed to keep a bit of debris and coat themselves in it, protecting them from radiation and prolonging their own useful life. Give the collectors swappable boards and perhaps a two year board replacement cycle and they should last for at least a decade each.
As for how to get them up there armadillo aerospace and the like are more than capable of boosting plenty of small payloads to low earth orbit in the near future. Chances are the toughest issue would be the legal fooforah of who owns the abandoned gear. Guaranteed that as soon as people figure out that their dead telsat has market value LLoyds will be fighting the salvage declaration.
So, if anybody wants to do this, look me up.
Rustin H. Wright
Information Geek, former inventor, founder and publisher, Reed&Wright
pubgeek@netscape.net
space debris travels at hundreds of miles an hour
Baby, you're very lucky if it's only hundreds. Try thousands.
The theory is that a missile defense system would (depending on the number of incoming warheads, it'd have to be less than 20 or so) stop most or all of the missiles, thus eliminating the need for a launch on warning response. This would keep a small exchange from escalating to a massive one.
Best Slashdot Co
New Scientist covered this story a while ago. See here.
That system worked until MIRV came along.
Best Slashdot Co
Lies! All of it lies! Saying that that much of the impacting debris is manmade is as silly as saying some global warming is caused by humans! Or even that global warming exists! Or that the Earth is not flat, or that Darwin knows better than God!
I am Jack's outrage!
--
Thermonuclear weapons don't kill people, people do!
Weapons are needed in space so it can be better used.
Until recently, only a few governments controlled the trickle into space. Private companies are now able to launch rockets, and even more will gain access as various launch technologies are completed.
Military agencies want to protect their country. The military will want the ability to protect against malicious use of space. Space-oriented weapons are needed before governments will reduce restrictions on private access to space.
I wouldn't be surprised to see that that's the case... I think that a couple of million pounds a day falls to the earth as space dust/micrometeors, etc. Thing is that a lot of the man-made stuff is likely to be on the larger end of the scale... Even something like a dropped wrench is likely larger than much of the space dust that hits the earth daily.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.