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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.
..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.
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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?
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"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
That office being NORAD, located in Cheyenne mountain. So yeah, that one's covered budgetarily, methinks. You think they're going to pay for a door that big and let the thing close?
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
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.
Your assumption is incorrect. A piece of dirt the size of a grain of sand could cripple the shuttle or any other orbiting body. Bullets (ok, small ones) are right around the 1 cubic centimeter range, and they kill people travelling only around 700 miles an hour. These pieces of debris are travelling in excess of 15000 miles per hour; they'll punch a hole through lots of things. Heat shielding, windows, astronauts...
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
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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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.
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
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