Space Junk Science News

18 Replies to “Space Junk Science News”

1. Before you no it, the Al-Gore-rhythms will beat to the Spacial-Swarming refrain. Over and over and over again.
   But I already know Scotland is Heaven!
   Slainte mha!

2. remember part of the scientists being paid on your nickle have already proposed sending up large silver balloons to reflect away excess sunlight. when your on the public purse actual reality has little to do with results.
   now if we could just expand out all that space junk to the size of scotland as per the diagram we will be saved from the curse of AGW. crop failures and starvation are inevitable but
   Al “what me worry”Gore says go for it.

3. This is actually one of the most serious problems facing space exploration, science, mapping, communications, etc and will only get worse unless some imaginative ways to clean this up are found.
   Full text http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/ESOC/SEMN2VM5NDF_mg_1.html

4. What the Telegraph was really saying; THE SKY IS FALLING !!

5. It will be or perhaps already is a problem for astronomy, and for scientific and commercial uses of near space.
   HOWever, the line ” Earth’s atmosphere still bears the scars” is priceless – DUH! The last time I checked, Earth’s atmosphere is gaseous, and will bear a “scar” for a few seconds to a few minutes, depending on how you are measuring.
   Also, Earth’s atmosphere is under continual bombardment – yes, BOMBARDMENT – by meteorites.

6. So few objects in such a vast amount of space.
   A picture simply can not grasp how sparsely populated earth’s orbit really is…

7. …… a thousand points of light ? ……

8. One wonders what naturally occuring “satellites” would look like if similarly plotted. Of course, using a scale that puts things completely out of perspective as this one does is also a nice little trick. To see more illustrations of how graphics are used in the case of global warming to make one view data in a way that the creators of the graphic want you to think, go to http://www.heartland.org/pdf/22829.pdf

9. A better view of earth orbits is here
   a fun java showing the identified orbits.

10. Oh come on now, this is a bit absurd. Given the scaling and screen resolution, this is pretty good. It does the job of illustrating the junk hazard out there, in an environment where E = 1/2mv squared can mean a lot of E.

11. I shouldn’t think that space is the problem out there, but if satellite A, a working satellite is orbiting in orbit a, and satellite B “space junk” is orbiting in orbit b, and orbit a and orbit b intersect at just the wrong time I imagine it might create a rather large dent in the side of satellite A which may cost a few few million or a few hundred million to repair.
    I think the odd piece of space detritus has in fact hit the space shuttle.
    Perhaps the when the Goreans figure out that nobody believes in global warming anymore, they’ll use the satellite argument as an excuse to declare global cooling.

12. The big ones aren’t a problem, everybody knows where they are. Its the little ones that they worry about. The famous stray paint fleck that almost punctured the window of the space shuttle is my favorite. That’s why they fly the shuttle backwards and upside down in orbit, take the hits on the tiles instead of the windows.
    A three quarter inch nut could probably make it most of the way through the space shuttle, lengthwise. Don’t drop the wrench, Starbuck!

13. Heh, reminds me of my old mantra from when I was young and stupid (and very very lucky);
    ‘The faster you go through an intersection, the less chance you have of being hit’
    …the operative word there of course being “being”
    🙂

14. Ya well, next time I take the old Millennium Falcon out for a spin to Arcturus, I will go slow until i clear the debris.
    Meanwhile consider,
    no satellites
    no cel phones
    Limited cable TV
    no GPS
    no Hubble
    no decent weather forecasting
    no future condos away from the maddening crowd
    And the list goes on, use your imagination.
    If you want to make an interstellar omelet, you will have to break a few orbital eggs.

15. Perspective is an abstraction to leftoid dogma.
    Putting things in proper perspective will negate the hysteria over them. Without hysteria the vacant left have no purpose.

16. Looks like a Mexican Hat …… shall we dance?

17. Space junk should never be a problem…..Isn’t the universe expanding?

18. To: John V. Global position can be carried out out by radio transmitters. As for cable TV, microwave technolgy of the 60’s could have been used. Cell phones use communications towers, and as for weather forecasting, they’re usually wrong anyway. Was it all worth it? Beam me up Jesus!