Space Debris - So much for space travel

[Berzerker]

The latest episode of stupidity was the Chinese knocking out one of their old satellites with a rocket. The amount of debris up there zipping around at 17,000 mph is increasing and wont be long before its too dangerous to fly thru it. Imagine if some country shot a rocket up there loaded with gravel. Thats according to Chalmers Johnson...

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Imagine if some country shot a rocket up there loaded with gravel.

I bet the Pentagon has a 20 billion dollar project to put carefully designed objects into orbit to cause problems...and I bet the Chinese have a $50 load of gravel that will do the same thing. The Russians probably have something that used to be kinda like the American stuff, but after sitting outside for 20 years now looks more like the Chinese stuff. The Europeans have most likely decided that this would be bad and have passed a policy that bans all countries from using it.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by PLATO


I bet the Pentagon has a 20 billion dollar project to put carefully designed objects into orbit to cause problems...and I bet the Chinese have a $50 load of gravel that will do the same thing. The Russians probably have something that used to be kinda like the American stuff, but after sitting outside for 20 years now looks more like the Chinese stuff. The Europeans have most likely decided that this would be bad and have passed a policy that bans all countries from using it.

[SlowwHand]

There's a lot of debris in space. Space reclamation might be a business to pursue.

[Berzerker]

yup, he joked we'll have space garbage trucks

[Proteus_MST]

Space debris



Our protective shield when the aliens finally decide to invade earth.
Their dropships will just go boom when they approach earth

[Dis]

or when they link up to a Mac

[Zoid]

[Dinner]

Wiki is cool.

The largest space debris incident in history was the Chinese anti-satellite weapon (ASAT) test on January 11, 2007.[10] The event created more than 2000 pieces (updated 8/5/07) of trackable debris (approximately golf ball size or larger), estimates of over 1 million pieces 1mm or larger and over 35,000 pieces 1cm or larger. The debris event is more significant than previous ASAT tests in that the debris field is in a higher orbital plane resulting in deorbit times of 35 years and greater. In June, 2007, NASA's Terra environmental spacecraft was the first to be moved in order to prevent impacts from this debris.[11]

An event of similar magnitude occurred on February 19, 2007, when a Russian Briz-M booster stage exploded in orbit over Australia. The booster had been launched on February 28, 2006, carrying an Arabsat-4A communication satellite but malfunctioned before it could use all of its fuel. The explosion was captured on film by several astronomers, but due to the path of the orbit the debris cloud has been hard to quantify using radar. Although similar in magnitude, the debris field is at a lower altitude than the Chinese ASAT test and much debris re-enters the atmosphere in a relatively short time. As of February 21, 2007, over 1,000 fragments had been identified.[12][13] A third breakup event also occurred on 14 February 2007 as recorded by Celes Trak.[14] This makes three observed events in the first two months of 2007. In 2006, the most breakups occurred since 1993 with eight breakups.[15]

[Impaler[WrG]]

If nessary Space Debree could be cleaned up by Orbital Garbage Scows. The design would be simple block of material designed to absorb impacting particles without itself breaking up. A combination of low density Airo-Gell and high tensile strength plastic such as Tyvec layered many times together would slow down and keep any debree locked inside. The Scow would be manuvered with IonDrive or solar-sails into a colision course with a target object. When its usefull life-span is exausted it simply de-orbits itself or is collected for recycling by space vagrants.

[Wezil]

Screw that. Sounds too complicated. Let's just give all the welfare people pointy sticks and put them to work.

[Riesstiu IV]

Let's keep launching crap until we get some nice rings like Saturn.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
When its usefull life-span is exausted it simply de-orbits itself or is collected for recycling by space vagrants.

Hey! We didn't win space back from the commies in the cold war just to give it to the freegans.

[Darius871]

I'm more worried about all these damn things: