About Space

The German newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, today published an article on space junk. The shocking image is an eye opener. Humankind continues to repeat the mistake of strewing waste into common spaces without a thought to the consequences, leaving costs we don't want to pay today for future generations. The European Space Agency's "Space Debris Accumulation" video depicts the tragic build up of space debris from 1957 through 2000. Ten thousand pieces of space litter cataloged at the end of 2003 break into the following categories:

That's 93% pure junk, and only 7% useful satellites circling the earth. There are also 50,000 uncataloged objects larger than 1 cm (the largest size which modern shielding can deflect) estimated to be spinning through space at hypervelocities. So, in total, we've left 58,000 mostly un-tracked "bullets" whizzing around up there, because we're litterbugs.

This hole over 1 cm in diameter penetrates the Hubble high gain antenna dish (the unit continued working in spite of the damage). The windows on the Space Shuttle have been replaced 80 times due to impacts with objects of less than 1 mm. And costly systems to track and issue daily warnings of potential impacts must be maintained. The future impacts must also be considered. Space debris would be a severe hindrance to space-based solar projects. Last, but not least, there is the risk of space junk raining down on us: space junk hitting an Oklahoma woman is one of Space.com's top ten most memorable pieces of space junk.So what can be done? Guidelines do exist, limiting the creation of debris in normal operations, and promoting "disposal" either by de-orbiting junk back towards earth, where it usually burns up in the atmosphere, or by putting space junk into "graveyard" orbits above the commercially important low-Earth and geostationary orbit zones. But more needs to be done. Some advocate for regulations. Others take it a step farther, speculating on giant NERF balls, space lasers and cosmic collection vehicles among other imaginative ways to tackle the growing problem.

Well I don't know about you, but I'm ready to rush on to episode three. But a deal's a deal. One a week. I'll post episode three on friday , along with the fresh magazine issue...