Slashdot Mirror
NASA Warns of Cluttered Space
Ant wrote to mention a National Geographic article looking at the cluttered nature of Near-Earth Orbit. From the article: "Since the launch of the Soviet Union's Sputnik I satellite in 1957, humans have been generating space junk. The U.S. Space Surveillance Network is currently tracking over 13,000 human-made objects larger than four inches (ten centimeters) in diameter orbiting the Earth. These include both operational spacecraft and debris such as derelict rocket bodies. 'Of the 13,000 objects, over 40 percent came from breakups of both spacecraft and rocket bodies,'Johnson said."
Yeah, dude, I'm going to spend $10,000/kg to lift myself up to orbit to go and collect paint chips.
Well...that's certainly a stupid proposition...is that truly the limit of your imagination? "Lift myself up to orbit to go and collect paint chips"?
It's fortunate we're not counting on you for a solution here.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Ohh, great idea. We already destroyed our planet earth. Now lets polute the sun too. Stupid American.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Before we worry about space, we should clean up earth.
Lets start by getting all the garbage that early pioneers left in the mountians when they were headed to California. The Californians should pay for the clean up. They are the ones that left the stuff there, when it became too much hassle to carry. We all know that this won't happen until someone is running through the hills and hits an abandoned bed. Then the news will be all over it. Maybe we can collect all the trash and make something usefull from it. It is almost to CA and since everything is over priced there, profit$$.