Space crash called "catastrophic," lots of debris

Space crash called "catastrophic," lots of debris

www.google.com

The crash of two satellites has generated an estimated tens of thousands of pieces of space junk that could circle Earth and threaten other satellites for the next 10,000 years, space experts said Friday.

(visit the link for the full news article)

This seems like a very big deal to me but nobody else seems to be making a fuss. What gives? Is this the end...of solar power or are the aliens going to clean it up for us? Is the G-ment going to launch a 56 trillion dollar effort to clean this up because they saw it with the time machine David Wilcock told us about and that is where the money went?

www.google.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

im sure a massive solar storm will take care of it.

or .. passing large body object....


they can shoot down or blow up 2 sattelites and claim they crashed.

they can do anything they want and the public will believe it.. no matter how mundane the cover.. or how absurd the circumstances.

anything.


"Absurdity, always absurdity. They do the absurd, because nobody ever investigates the absurd."

-

I'm not sure I'd call it catastrophic but it is bad. I guess we're just polluting space now that we've gotten so good at it on earth.

watch.. i bet you.. it will be said that the debris will knock out "vital" DoD satellites.. so that if the unthinkable happens.. they'll be like... "we couldn't see them coming"... etc..

-el

It's very disconcerting to think about how we as individuals can be tracked to the nth degree, and it's incredible that those who use satellites to track us don't have enough sense to set up space traffic control and safety. After all, if their satellite goes, they can't track us anymore. Then what will they do? After freaking out, they'll say "doh! guess we should have thought about that before now." Then again, maybe I give them too much credit for intelligence. Maybe instead, they'll do the modern thing and blame someone or something else.

Has anyone found a space image of this yet?

"The US army and NASA have radars that can track satellites and the biggest debris, measuring more than 10 centimetres (four inches) across," he told AFP.

Before the collision, there were around 12,000 orbiting objects of this size.

Before the latest incident, there were over 300,000 orbital objects measuring between 1 and 10 centimetres (0.4 and four inches) in diameter and "billions" of smaller pieces, a watchdog group called the Space Security Index said last year.

The rubbish includes micro-particles and massive fuel tanks, drifting derelict satellites, pieces from satellites or final-stage launchers that have either disintegrated in the hostile environment of space, or exploded because of residual fuel.

www.abs-cbnnews.com...

I remember reading an article on an Astronomy publication over ten years ago that already pointed towards the rising threat of orbiting space debris for future and current space missions. Also a piece of metal of sizes as small as 1cm orbiting the planet can act pretty much as a bullet in a continuous path.

I never expected a collision between satellites though. Since this event however I read that of the thousands of official satellites we have put out there only about 800 are active? (Not sure about the accuracy of these numbers) That's starting to amount to an impressive pile of garbage over our heads.

I think it is to be expected that as we become more and more space active a new ecological point of view will surface and we'll see more and more projects and efforts towards cleaning our orbit.

It is funny how we can compare our current astronomy age to the point where in other industrial revolutions we started to notice the negative effects of our technological progress on the environment.

An entertaining thought would be imagining that maybe one day the Earth will have Saturn-like rings... made out of shiny metal trash.


Welcome to the age of Space Pollution.

[edit on 18-2-2009 by InTrueFiction]

[edit on 18-2-2009 by InTrueFiction]

We should tow all the trash up there to a space station further out or a moon or asteroid base and recycle the materials there. We already spent the money and energy sending them up there. Seems a shame to just let them burn up or worse upon reentry. They could also collect them and bring them back to Earth of space collectors and museums and make some money at the same time.

I like how they say "threaten satellites" but not people...All that debris up there floating around as well poses a risk...

Wouldn't be fun to be sitting in your home and have a satellite chunk come crashing through your living room ceiling.

reply to post by stikkinikki


This is one of those things that sound like a good idea in theory, but it ends up being impractical when you try to make it a reality. Each piece of that junk is going at a different speed, trajectory, and orbit altitude, and despite what JL would have you believe, our shuttles just cannot maneuver around like that up there. You would quite literally have to launch a separate mission for each individual piece of trash you want to capture, and you would have to orbit insert to rendezvous with that piece. Of course with each mission that you have to launch, you create more trash up there as well, and the cycle becomes never ending.

Ive seen pics of the space shuttles windshiled damaged at the micron level, form micrometeorites. Microscopic holes, but becasue space is a vacuum, the windshield has already been damaged, nonetheless...one small fracture could be enuogh to cause depressuration, and that will be the end of that. Even if the astronauts were in thier presurized space suits, they have no windshield...Re entry would be impossible unless NASA sent a 2nd rescue shuttle up, and thats all beyond the last second timing.Theyde run out of air before the shutttle made it to the liftoff pad.
I saw a video here, from 1957 to present, of all the satelittes launched into earth oribt. You cant even really make out the earth anymore! I was pondering on this very subject this morning..how to clean up the debris or non functioning satellites up thier. Only manmade logical idea came to my mind, was to make a wire or metal mesh net, abuot 5 miles in diameter. Let it float in orbit, catching as much as it can posibly hold, then let it fall or using thrusters of some sort, casue to to re enter for incineration, and any pieces that make it back, scrap or recycle.
4 inches using radar is not good enough, all yuo have to do, is google in space shuttle window damage, and see what things smaller than 4 inches can do! Remember, even dust itself, in orbit, is traveling at about 17,000 miles an hour plus..now THATS DAMAGE

I am considering the possible risk for a chain reaction; smaller debris knocking larger objects of junk out of orbit, thus, in turn colliding with other sattelites which contribute to a worsening situation.
I am no rocket scientist (yes, pun intended), but I can really see it happen.

Wasn't it not long ago a satellite crashed that cointained some toxic/radioactive materials, leaving poeple seriously ill?

I guess someone, somewhere is really crouching down behind a desk thinking "uh-oh..."
Poor bastard...