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The NY Times has a good story about a push for international action, via the UN, on the growing problem of space debris. Includes a pretty picture of a space shuttle window that got nailed by a fleck of paint.
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...is that it is a chain reaction. It is relatively safe up there at the moment, but if we ever get a satelite (say) hit then the debris caused by it's disintergration will cause further problems. I am sure those with even the slightest imagination can see the ongoing process that happens next. You want to go up after that has been becoming exponetially worse for a year or two?
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/18/science/space/18 TRAF.html?ex=1046149200&en=f39397b7a99dc415&ei=506 2&partner=GOOGLE
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Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
This is pretty old news but it's got better pics. Norad has been tracking space trash for decades. Fact of the matter is, there is trash up there, yes it can hurt you or the shuttle, or the hubble, etc. But the odds are very slim for most orbits. The hubble got hit with a little piece once, but the odds are pretty slim anything we send up will get hit by debris.
what? what I thought we were in the trust tree in the nest, were we not?
What happens is relatively unspectacular. They vaporize. Quietly. They don't blow up or nothin'.
/kg.
The spectacular part is the approximate cost of $25k
Do you know how much a landfill weighs?
So we don't even have to go into the fact that the overall enviromental impact of doing this is greater than a properly managed landfill.
KFG
Given that Libya chairs the UN human rights committee, and Iraq is scheduled to chair the disarmament committee later this year, is Elbonia going to chair the space debris committee?
It would be extremely difficult to track small pieces of debris. That's why you have to get rid of junk when it's big....before it becomes little pieces.
Remember, the energy a moving mass has (kinetic energy) is defined as:
Kinetic Energy = 1/2 * mass * velocity ^ 2
What that means is that velocity is much more important than mass. To give an example, a small bolt about 1/4" in diameter traveling at 17,500 mph has the same kinetic energy as a bowling ball traveling at 60 mph.
Yikes!
-A
You think Earth's got problems? Imagine the space debris problem in the Endor system. I mean, hell, the entire death star exploded - and that thing was friggin' HUGE! I mean, there you are, heading towards a nice vacation on Endor's forest moon, planning on partying down with the Ewoks, when all of a sudden - WHAM! little Palpatine bits are impacting against your YT1300 cockpit windows. I wouldn't want to be the clean-up crews working the Alderaan, Yavin, or Endor star systems. You'd be there for as long as it takes a Sarlaac to digest a barge full of Hutts...
Don't be ridiculous. Like slashdot would ever dupe articles; I mean, there are a bunch of people working there, they post only a handful of stories a day, and it takes what, a few seconds to check whether an article is a dupe? Do you really think they wouldn't take those 10 seconds to check?
I think you owe the editors an apology for even insinuating such a thing.
The ISS has some interesting features to make it space debris resistant. Apparently the sleeping quarters (and hopefully anything else that has humans in it) has several layers of high strength fabric separated by quite a bit of empty volume in order to soak up the kinetic energy of space debris as it will inevitably hit the station. Of course, this approach is difficult for a launch or re-entry vehicle since the gaurd would have to be deployed after launch and retracted before re-entry.
Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.
It's more useful to launch prison inmates into orbit.
;)
Maybe we can launch them towards Mars so they can colonize it. Hey, it worked for Australia, didn't it? It's a cool place!
The link in the article is broken. Either the newspaper is routing webpage requests to some login page for reporters, or the actual link to the article is wrong. I can tell this because a newspaper wouldn't have it's readers log in
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of the Corporate States of America...
With the UN in charge, if someone broke the rules the UN would say, "Stop! or we'll say 'Stop!', again".
The UN has proven on numerous occassions that they are nothing but pencil pushing bureaucrates who, at best, do nothing, but all too often simply make the situation worse.
Look at Rwanda. Given the job of protecting 100,000 unarmed refugees, the UN security force DID NOTHING when a warlord's army arrived and proceeded to slaughter every man, woman, and child.
So now someone wants to give the UN the job of reducing space junk? No thank you, I'd rather take my chances with out their help.
-- Will program for bandwidth
REUTERS - Feb 1, 2023:
UN Secretary General Clinton said in a speech today that while the loss of the privately-launched and operated "Armadillo" space plane last weekend is regrettable, but that the United States is obliged to "give the collections process time to work", and called for the UN Space Council to pass a resolution calling for the complete cleanup of space debris by 2033.
BACKGROUND: The UN Space Council was formed following the loss of Shuttle Columbia 20 years ago. After passing resolutions calling for permanent funding form the UN, it promptly passed a series of resolutions concerning the issue of space debris in low earth orbit.
Following the loss of Shuttle Discovery to space debris in 2005, the UN Space Council passed Resolution 1042, calling for a programme that would investigate the feasibility of LEO debris collection.
In response to the stranding of the crews of the ISS and Shuttle Atlantis due to damage a surprise recurrence of the Leonids in 2006, the UN Space Council passed Resolution 1334, lauding the process of investigation, and calling for additional time to study the problem.
Rescue shuttle Endeavor was launched one month later, but failed to make it into orbit after the main engine was punctured by space debris. All three vehicles were loss. This catastrophe prompted Resolution 1349, demanding an extension of the deadline for submission of the debris collection feasibility study, and an expansion of the study to include weapons of meteoric destruction below the tropopause.
Secretary-General Clinton hailed this week's decision by the UN Space Council to proceed on another resolution, and in his speech, reminded the world that despite the Armadillo tragedy, it was due to the diligence of the UN Space Debris Collections Process that there had been no losses of manned spacecraft since the loss of the last Shuttle in 2006.
A furious Tom Paine, former NASA administrator during the Apollo years, was ejected as he attempted to disrupt the proceedings from the visitors' gallery. Rumors that the words "You sick bastards, the reason NASA hasn't lost a manned mission since the loss of the last shuttle in 2006 is because it hasn't launched anything since then! For fuck's sake, it hasn't even frickin' built a new manned vehicle based on post-1982 technology!" are completely false.
UN Secretary-General Clinton kept his composure despite the disruption in the gallery, and concluded his address to the UN Space Council without further incident.
His call for a new UN Space Council resolution to "let the debris collectors assess the situation" has received great support, particularly from representatives of Arianespace.
Small question, having heard for a while about the problems of space junk...
If that one-centimeter pellet is going 20,000 mph faster than the shuttle, wouldn't it be in a much higher orbit? And if the shuttle is going 20,000 mph faster than the pellet, wouldn't the pellet be in a lower orbit (i.e. on the ground)? And if they're both going at 20,000 mph... what's the problem?
I know that LEO is getting pretty damn crowded with junk, but what are the real differences in relative speed at that altitude/orbit? Without the 20,000 mph FUD?
-T