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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.
The U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL has a display featuring a 1" or 2" crater that was put in the windshield of a Space Shuttle by an orbiting flake of paint.
I'd hate to run into a 1/4" washer at 5 mi/sec.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
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.
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you know, that report is slightly unsettling in some ways.
What was expected to be a routine shuttle departure took on an uncharacteristic air late Friday when NASA mission managers scrambled to put together a plan to dodge the inbound chunk of Russian space junk
so the International Space Station was going to possibly be struck by a 20 foot long piece of metal travelling at 25 times the speed of sound, but was moved successfully because the shuttle happened to be up there at the time. They discovered the possible collision 2-3 days before it was going to happen...
Sounds to me that they were very lucky to have had the shuttle up there, if that's all the warning they can give, what will happen when a shuttle is not up in space and a threat is discovered?
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
Actually, I know someone who was doing research on this stuff using the radar systems out at Goldstone tracking station. Basically, you use two antennas - one transmitting a beam, the other pointing at some volumetric cross-section of that beam. The echo from stuff goimg through the beam gets detected by the other antenna, and you get phase information based upon the initial signal and the moving object's trajectory.
The analog is shining a flashlight up into the dark and watching the light hitting dust motes.
You can see very small stuff this way.
And there's a lot more of it up there than you might think.
The hazard, of course, is that if you run into some tiny fleck of crap that's in orbit, you may well be in trouble. Now, if it's in the same orbit as you (or nearly the same), you're OK, since the relative velocity is low. But if you're headed in the opposite orbit (worst case), you've got a very hgh energy kinetic weapon that will probably blow right through you... consider that a powerful rifle gives a bullet a muzzle velocity on the order of 4 k ft/sec, while orbital velocity is on the order of 25.5 k ft/sec (sorry for the US units, but you get the point). Since energy goes with the square of the velocity, you're looking at one wicked bullet, even if it is a lightweight fleck of paint!
And historically, we've been pretty cavalier about spewing stuff around up there. Do a google search on the West Ford experiment, for example...
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
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This is actually one of the reasons WHY LEO was chosen as the place for the ISS. It's "cleaner" space.
The biggest threat (imo) is from polar-launched satellites (typically military surveillance), which produce debris which typically crosses the other orbits more frequently. Launch a satellite in a normal orbit, and all the space debris created will be generally moving in a similar orbit at a similar velocity. 17-20,000 mph. No space object is going to encounter another space object at 20,000mph because it's all going pretty much the same speed in the same direction at that altitude. Anything moving faster is going to gain altitude, and anything moving slower is going to lose altitude. It's the polar orbits that produce the danger.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
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."
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
Jeez your an idiot.
You don't have to physically fill up leo space, it would be well beyond useless before you were even close.
If you wan't to continue your flawed idea, calculate the volume swept out over the course of one day by all those objects (@ roughly 7 Km/sec). Each of your 5x5 meter object now sweeps out about 175,000 m^3/s x 86400 s/day = 1.512e+10 * 50000 objects = 7.56e+14
Still a very small fraction of the space available, yet there has been at least one confirmed collision between tracked space objects (cerise).
The sum volume of the objects is relatively negligible.