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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."
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.
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
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.