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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."
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?
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
Why are there only three astronauts on the ISS right now rather than six? Are we between crew rotations right now?
Kessler syndrome indicates that if they wait for a couple large impacts, it could be too late.
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.
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.