Slashdot Mirror
Astronauts Forced To Take Shelter From Space Junk
An anonymous reader writes: Three astronauts living at the International Space Station were forced to scramble to safety Thursday after a "close pass" by flying Russian space debris. The men decamped into the Soyuz spacecraft, which is attached to the orbiting station, while a chunk of an old Russian weather satellite passed 1.5 miles away. Flight engineer Scott Kelly tweeted: "Happy there was no impact. Great coordination with international ground teams. Excellent training."
Really cool movie.
now they try to cover up their lies by destroying their international fake station with fake junk. It's over now!
Redundant as that is.
Not so much fight, just ignore, until... ...there is some tragedy and they get a chance to declare a "War on Space Junk", then they will go into full gear, setting up shell corporations to suck up government funding while accomplishing very little beyond what would normally deorbit due to atmospheric drag. We might even get lucky and create an even more dangerous situation by placing tons of gear into orbit attempting to 'clean up'
Of course they will declare victory early on and then blame a subsequent administration for abandoning their efforts, defaming everybody who fell in the battle against space junk and cow-towing to the effects of inertia and gravity
So, business as usual
Wherever You Go, There You Are
... being able to keep their old junk but in reality they must replace it with inferior but more expensive space junk.
You're still pissed off about that low-flow toilet, aren't you, Hank?
Was this made up by the submitter? It's nowhere to be found in the article.
My first post was "Funny", my SECOND post was "Flame Bait"
Just thought you would benefit from the demonstration
Wherever You Go, There You Are
The free market will solve this problem.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
This is me logging in to tell you there is no such thing as cow-towing, but the idea of it happening in orbit cracks me up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.
And the democrats will claim that all people have the right to space junk
And, if you like your space junk, you can keep your space junk.
It does lend itself to the idea of western ranchers aiding in the "War on Space Junk"(TM) by providing range-fed beef to be launched into orbit, where they will act like sponges mopping up vast swaths of orbital trash, then burn up like fireworks as they fall back to Earth, with the various metallic particles each providing a different color of light.
I can even see an aged Marlborough Man-esque figure getting all sentimental over his herd giving their all to save the space-men then turning it into a piece of insightful Cowboy poetry
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Really? They scrambled to safety... in space?
I wonder how much time they would have to react if they had to adjust "if possible" the position or trajectory of the ISS.
1.5 miles is really close if you think about it.
Why are there only three astronauts on the ISS right now rather than six? Are we between crew rotations right now?
I JUST finished watching the movie Gravity about 5 minutes ago.
Kessler syndrome indicates that if they wait for a couple large impacts, it could be too late.
Learn to love Alaska
floating bollocks
Kessler syndrome indicates that if they wait for a couple large impacts, it could be too late.
I propose that we launch a ion drive satellite that can change orbits at will and use magnets and electrostatic and physical means to capture space junk and dead satellites and either deliver them to a garbage depot in orbit for recycling or place them in a de-orbit trajectory that will use the gravitational influence of still active and maneuverable satellites to de-orbit further.
(It is known that when an object in a lower orbit and an object an a higher orbit pass by each other the gravitational influence of the lower, faster moving object loses energy to the slower moving, higher orbit object, thereby causing the lower object to slow down and move into a lower orbit and speed up the higher orbit object pushing it into a higher orbit.)
We could measure the efficiency of this garbage collecting satellite by the amount of distance it travels to clear away X amount of tonnage of space debris. I'll put it another way...
We can sell the idea like this: Call the Satellite the Millennium Falcon, and when people look at you funny because of the sci-fi reference, Say "You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon? it's the ship that made the Kessler Run in less than 12 parsecs!" Star Wars defense system 2.0! (totally republican concept first uttered by Ronald Reagan.)
Seriously though, we need an international law that states that end of life of any object put into orbit must include a plan for it's debris collection and de-orbit into a target zone in the pacific ocean. (it's a big target)
Definition of Irony? Captcha = Naughty
Russian space debris, American space debris... it's all made in China
Hard drives got better and we have 3D printers, nothing shall stop the entire SPECIES from colonizing the universe!!!
Look out, a 6-32 bolt!!! Everyone hide!!!!!!!!!!!
Seriously though, we need an international law that states that end of life of any object put into orbit must include a plan for it's debris collection and de-orbit into a target zone in the pacific ocean. (it's a big target)
Won't work for GEO. They don't carry enough fuel to de-orbit, and doing so would be cost prohibitive.
If we ever sent up a space elevator, how would we protect it from all our junk? Would we need to clean up the orbits, or could we armor it, or have a point defense system?
Learn to love Alaska
If you build a real space elevator, it will clear its own orbit of junk. If it can't do that, it is called a dwarf space elevator.
I can even see an aged Marlborough Man-esque figure getting all sentimental over his herd giving their all to save the space-men then turning it into a piece of insightful Cowboy poetry
By which you mean he'll deliver his speech while dying of cancer in a dark room, right?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Having been to the facilities that track space junk, I can say you have no idea what you are talking about. They contain some of the worlds most advanced equipment.
And not that I really care much about partisan politics, but the facilities are military with year over year increasing budgets. Military spending is typically associated with the republican party.
Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
I am sure they must have radar on the ISS that can show and track incoming junk so they don't have to hide if somthing passes 1.5miles away. If they take refeuge in the Soyuz spacecraft what would happen if that was hit instead of the ISS
It's a fairly routine activity for them to hunk down on passing debris. I remember a story a few years ago when they actually had to do this for a fleck of paint about 1cm in size.
They're trained for these and it probably happens a lot more than we know.
What was the Space Junk doing with the shelter in the first place? And what forced the astronauts to take it away?
No way; heat, metal and meat. I fail to see what is bad about this situation.
It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.