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Low Earth Orbit Junk Yard Nearly Full

Posted by Zonk on from the get-a-vacuum-up-there dept.

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."

11 of 443 comments (clear)

  1. Look at the bright side by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Space debris appear to be a difficult problem to deal with and may hinder future space exploration.

    Sure, but it also prevents stuff from comig in. Things like alien landers, etc. Or in an earth hostility only mode, it is a cheaper, and more effective, vresion of the Star Wars defense. Put more up there and let it shield us.

  2. Solution by EveryNickIsTaken · · Score: 5, Funny

    Launch a new ball of garbage into orbit to propel the old ball of garbage away from earth. It's foolproof.

  3. How bad are we? by SQLz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not only are we destroying our own environment, our planet is surrounded by floating trash.

    1. Re:How bad are we? by Intron · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.
    2. Re:How bad are we? by careysub · · Score: 5, Informative

      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
  4. I have a radical idea by realmolo · · Score: 5, Funny

    NASA needs to cut a deal with Blizzard. Make each of the pieces of "space junk" an ultra-rare item in World of Warcraft that the players have to go and collect themselves.

    The problem will be solved in 3 months.

  5. saweet by esobofh · · Score: 5, Funny

    Soon those saturn bastards will envy OUR ring!!

    --

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    Esobofh - Currently drinking fresh mango juice.
  6. Re:No problem by rblancarte · · Score: 5, Funny

    You can see that the stress of all the debris is having a bad effect on astronauts already.

    RonB

    --
    It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
  7. Re:No problem by Zephyros · · Score: 5, Funny

    And then when it's got everything, we can aim it at whomever we want and switch it from "suck" to "blow"...

  8. Re:No problem by dpilot · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've sometimes mused about a big hunk of aerogel in orbit. I suspect that you don't really need to catch or stop things, just slow them down. If these pieces of junk could just be persuaded to drop perigee down into the 100 mile range, then atmospheric decay would help out.

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
  9. Re:No problem by mfrank · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just increase the rate of global warming. The warmer atmosphere will expand further into space, and all the junk will re-enter and burn up.

    Also, we can schedule a date and time where everybody exhales simultaneously. That'll help.