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Low Earth Orbit Junk Yard Nearly Full
vlado4 writes "The New York Times has up an article on the amount of space junk in Earth Orbit. According to NASA officials, the amount of stuff we've put into LEO is at critical levels. Additionally they have great graphics of the nearly 1000 new pieces resulting from testing the new Chinese anti-satellite weapon, as well as the damage to Hubble's solar array. The litter is now so bad that, even if space-faring nations refrained from further interference, collisions would continue to create more clutter just above our atmosphere. Space debris appear to be a difficult problem to deal with and may hinder future space exploration."
The NYT calls out the US but makes no mention of the the loss of the CERISE satellite by a fragment of an exploded Ariane upper stage in 1997.
an ill wind that blows no good
Not really. Decay time due to drag for LEO is fairly short. Debris in orbits below 300 km (where ISS lives) falls in less than 30 days. Debris up by the Hubble can stay up for years, but will fall eventually. Here is a chart of orbital decay vs. altitude.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Because those "chowderheads" are aware of the facts that:
1) We have no space tugs
2) Space tugs still cost money to operate (ion engines still use fuel, just less of it)
3) All craft break, even tugs, and in-space maintenence is ungodly expensive
4) Due to widely differing debris orbits and the need to match your target's orbit, it could take an ion engine years *per particle*.
5) The stuff is seen as junk for a reason.
6) There is no in-space forge, either researched or built or launched. Developing one would be a massive (unfunded) research project
7) There is no in-space casting facility. See above.
8) There is no in-space welding infrastructure. See above.
9) Any in-space manufacture would cost a fortune due to the extremely high labor and maintenence costs.
10) Any of the necessary components (tug, forge, casting, welding) could outright fail, making the entire system worthless.
All for what benefit -- eliminating one launch per several *thousand* pieces of debris captured? Great plan there. It's just not realistic, nor economical. Apparently non-"chowderheads" aren't aware of this.
Monkeywrench Ex Machina.
Not really. Decay time due to drag for LEO is fairly short. Debris in orbits below 300 km (where ISS lives) falls in less than 30 days. Debris up by the Hubble can stay up for years, but will fall eventually. Here is a chart of orbital decay vs. altitude.
This is correct. At low enough altitudes space debris does not cause a run-away debris scenario. This point was made in the New York Times article - if the Chinese had conducted their test at the ISS orbital altitude there would be no long term problem (just a medium term one for the ISS).
In fact drag automatically clears debris below about 700 km, eventually, but not above that altitude. There was a good article on this a year ago in Science: "Risks in Space from Orbiting Debris" by Liou and Johnson (20 January 2006: Vol. 311. no. 5759, pp. 340 - 341). They published a debris vs altitude chart for 2004, 2104, and 2204 showing that (assuming nothing else is launched into space), the existing debris cloud would be entirely cleared below 400 km in 100 years, and at least reduced below today's density between 400 and 700 km. Above that altitude the density keeps climbing century after century. By far the worst hazard is between 800 km and 1050 km.
This limits the hazard to a certain band of orbital altitudes, a fact not brought out in the news article. It isn't a denial of space by any means, but it is a significant restriction on usable orbits.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
This is *hugely* interesting.
This looks at the economics of how "space garbage collectors" might be managed.
"Planetes" is an outstanding anime - *very* well thought out for the medium-term future of space development. It has a richly envisioned, deeply layered world w/Power struggles (political, corporate), collapse of petroleum economy, widening divide between 1st & 3rd world economies. It is a Very well crafted series; a rich tapestry woven of thought provoking ideas.
The gui "interface" they designed for the space suits is reason enough to watch it. It is Frickin' Cool!
The story line is Exceptionally well done, too.
(Oh yeah, first rate animation is a bonus; nice to see, too.)