Why NASA Launched Millions of Tiny Copper Wires In Orbit

coondoggie writes "Imagine 500 million short copper wires — no longer than the tip of your index finger — floating in space creating what amounts to an antenna belt that could be used to send messages and conduct other space communications research. That would describe the 1960s era Project Space Needles or Project West Ford as it was sometimes called that NASA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last undertook in 1963 which saw the blasting of millions of those copper hairs into space. NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office this month did a 'Where are they now' look at those copper wires and said that after 50 years, some of them indeed still make up a small amount of orbital debris."

Comments

dup

[slew]

http://slashdot.org/story/13/08/13/2022222/cold-war-plan-tried-to-put-a-copper-ring-around-the-earth

Re:dup

[worf_mo]

Today must be Alzheimer's Day, the previous story was a dupe, too.

Re:dup

[Anonymous Coward]

Today must be Alzheimer's Day, the previous story was a dupe, too.

Copper may play key role in Alzheimer's disease

August 19, 2013|By Melissa Healy

Copper, including trace amounts in water that passes through copper pipes like these, appears to cause a cascade of events that feeds the progression of Alzheimer's disease, a new study says.
New research finds that copper in amounts readily found in our drinking water, the foods we eat and the vitamin supplements we take likely plays a key role in initiating and fueling the abnormal protein build-up and brain inflammation that are hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease.

link:http://articles.latimes.com/2013/aug/19/science/la-sci-copper-alzheimers-disease-20130819

Re:dup

[Thanshin]

Today must be AIzheimer's Day, the previous story was a dupe, too.

Re:dup

[geogob]

Yes! This post regarding an article published yesterday, citing a NASA report from octobre 2013, most totally be a dup from august 2013.

If you are so clever, I bet you are clever enough not to read something that doesn't fit your personal interests or something you've already read about, maybe in some other context. But maybe you should read this article and the report cited to see how far this is from a dup.

But I suggest you skip the Journalistic touch and jump direct to the NASA report. I found it quite interesting - not just the part about the copper needles.

Re:dup

[wonkey_monkey]

French toast please.

Re:dup

[gatzke]

Back in the day, a story wasn't a story until it hit slashdot at least three times, a trupe.

I still remember seeing a story duped on the front page just a couple of posts between the two, like the "editors" didn't even look at the site.

Look up "Window" from WWII RAF tactics

[Freshly Exhumed]

The RAF screwed up Nazi radar with "Window", which is the precursor of the NASA Project West Ford:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_(codename)

Re:Look up "Window" from WWII RAF tactics

[hackertourist]

Except that West Ford was designed to aid communication, not inhibit it.

Re:Look up "Window" from WWII RAF tactics

[dargaud]

Just made me waste 2 hours on wikipedia. Proud of yourself ?

lenght of index finger tip ...

[YoungManKlaus]

very exact measurement ... NOT!

Re:lenght of index finger tip ...

[Sockatume]

Well, it's not meant to be exact, is it? Unless you were planning on building your own device on the basis of a Slashdot summary?

Re: lenght of index finger tip ...

[Thanshin]

I've been reading the news and i just want to know how many football fields is that?

Or how many can I put inside a football stadium?

As many as ping pong balls you can fit inside the Library of Congress.

Failing that, I would like to know if you place them end to end , how many times will it encircle the earth?

Exactly once. Any more than that and you wouldn't be placing them end to end but parallel to each other.

Re:More junk.

[Taco Cowboy]

So, NASA spends millions every year monitoring debris (more commonly knows as space crap) and are worried that even a flake of paint can damage a space station because of its speed, and they deliberately put debris (crap) into space. Well done NASA.

Do what I say not what I do.

Re:More junk.

[tinkerton]

and they deliberately put debris (crap) into space

Past tense. They put the copper in space 50 years ago.There's nothing hypocritical about it. The situation has changed. Attitudes have cahnged

Re:More junk.

[LWATCDR]

That was in 1961.... Back when people tested hydrogen bombs on the surface of the earth, in space, and under water, drove cars that had no real emission controls, and dumped chemicals into the water without restriction. AKA we have learned better since then....

Re:More junk.

[FrankSchwab]

I don't know where you live, but in the US your comment would be simply wrong.

Having grown up in the LA basin in the 70's, and going back there on a regular basis now, I can safely say that there is significantly less air pollution now than there was then. Open dumping of toxic chemicals in places like the Stringfellow Acid Pits (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stringfellow_Acid_Pits) is no longer tolerated. Rivers are no longer used as open cesspools or convenient dumps for industrial chemical processes. Landfills are now designed to catch and remove all leachate.

I would guess that we release more CO2 these days than we did then, and due to coal-burning perhaps more mercury and radiation (although shutting down atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons certainly helped on the radiation front). But the environmental movements of the 60's and 70's were vastly more successful than your comment gives them credit for.

If you'd like to see the difference, visit any major US city and note the quantity and kinds of pollution you see. Then go visit any major Chinese city and do the same.