Slashdot Mirror
What Was the First Piece of Man-Made Space Junk?
Splynn asks: "I was wondering about what the very first man made object to leave Earth's atmosphere was. We all know that Sputnik was the first man made satellite, but there must have been something that actually made it out there befor Sputnik." For those who are curious, Sputnik was launched on October 4, 1957. Sputnik may have been the first satellite to orbit the earth, but was it really the first successful launch into space?
...at least according to this page.
Best slashdot comment
Sputnik means "We beat the Americans!"
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
When you say leave the atmosphere, you're not saying much. Even low earth orbit satellites such as the shuttle are in the atmosphere, just a very thin part of it.
If you set some altitude then you can figure out easily which rocket was first.
One of the V2 rockets fired by the United States in 1949 reached an altitude of about 250 miles. This was a modified configuration from the way it was originally built by the Germans.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
"What was the first-piece of man-made space junk?"
I'd imagine that is asking what the first thing we put into orbit was. If no screws came off experimental V2's, then I'd imagine that the first real "space junk" was put up with the atomic bomb detonation at Trinity.
There is actually an interesting story in regards to this. When the SR-71 was first built, they were surprised to find little black impact crators on the wind-shield--apparently received while the bird was flying at maximum altitude. Of course, that is far too high for debris. Later, after analysis, they came to the conclusion that the SR-71 had collided with insects thrown up by nuclear detonations. You can think of it as our first problem with space (high-altitude anyway) junk.
Check the following link out. He did a good job trying to collect from primary sources, and actual known values to get the the answer. Read the article to find out, but it aint likely to be sputnick. http://www.strangehorizons.com/2002/20021021/manho le.shtml
Is this the end yet?...How 'bout now...how 'bout now...how 'bout now?
Here's a link about a test launch a few months before Sputnik. The US was testing Vanguards at the same time, though, and there were other ballistic missiles on both sides.
Come on, someone must know the answer!
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Less known is that just after Sputnik was launched a bunch of the engineers grabbed whatever they could lay their hands on and attempted to orbit their own satellite dubbed NOTSnik. They made six launches and while they were unable to prove a successful orbit many believe that one launch did make it all the way around. Doubt any remain as space junk, though.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
See here for one article, but others exist (try searching for: manhole nuclear space object).
The article ponders whether it is myth or not and provides a number of links to other sites *documenting* the situation.
But realistically, it depends on what you define as man made. Byproducts from many industrial products will certainly (at least some of them) escape the bounds of our planet due to issues such as wind, volcanos, etc... I'm certain that on a daily basis we throw off quite a bit of dna etc...
But somehow, a manhole cover seems fitting.
--I was a gradeschool kid then and I remember that night it was announced. It scared the crap out of the adults. That's really the biggest thing I remember about it, got a sense they were all going "ohh 5|-|!7" and wondering when atomic ww3 was gonna start, because the russians were "so much ahead". I don't recall a lot of "cool-science" talk, nope, it was a lot more along the lines of "dang, russkies got the high ground, this sucks". The awarness of airpower and having the high ground was still pretty much in adults consciousness then, all of them remembered the tremendous advantage the allies had after establishing air superiority in ww2 and to a lesser extent korea, because before that, the outcome of the war was in MAJOR serious doubt.
My pet peeve was the government abandoning the x-series projects, going to the dumb capsule idea. I think if we had just kept developing the "space plane" concept then, we'd be 20 years further down the road to space travel being even more normal than it is now, and a lot cheaper. I also think that yaeger was technically the first guy in "space", certainly close enough.
I have heard specualation that some World War 1 (or maybe 2) planes flew too high and accidently entered orbit. Maybe there is a big updraft in the Burmuda Triangle! ;-)
Orbital velocity is just a few miles per hour short of 18,000 MPH. Fail to reach orbital velocity and you'll fall back to Earth, no matter how high you go.
No WW 2, much less WW 1, aircraft were capable of reching even a fraction of orbital veleocity.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I'm not sure whether this is true, hopefully someone here with more knowledge about that subject could clarify this. As most of you might know, the germans did some early rocket science in WWII, with the famous V2 rocket on which both the russians and americans based their first rockets being only one of many attempts. So I guess the first space junk may result from those experiments, perhaps around 1944. And whatever the first piece of space-junk was, I guess it wasn't space-junk for a long time because they couldn't get very high with those early rockets. I guess Wernher von Braun could have answered that question, but my guess is the first piece of space-junk was some screw that got loose ;-)
--no, not sputnik, it was just the realization that they had gotten "up there" first, and 'space nukes" might be soon forthcoming. Was a serious blow to national prestige and thoughts of "invincibility" I guess. Like I said I was just a grade school kid then but it was a BIG DEAL in conversations I overheard. As kids we just looked at pictures and 'artists impressions' drawings, etc. We all went out tried to see it as the newspapers had a track, but I never saw it. I DID see "echo", our satellite, with some binoculars, that was cool.
Neat young geekatroid story. Had one of the first "transistor radios", was also one of the school sliderule and busted briefcase nerds. During one of the earlier geminis, I got to monitor the "news" out on the playground with the radio,where the reception actually "received" -heh- then come in and get on the school PA system and give "updates" every 15 minutes. Nice assignment. Manned launches were always constant tv and radio coverage back then, pre-empted most all other programming. cool beans and stuff.