NASA's Top 10 Space Junk Missions 103
Posted
by
CmdrTaco
from the play-debris-for-me dept.
from the play-debris-for-me dept.
Ant writes "NASA has identified the top ten space junk missions and said over 19,000 pieces of space junk are known to exist..." That's nothing: You should see my living room.
Re:Space sized bin bag (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Space sized bin bag (Score:5, Insightful)
Much of the space debris is in very small pieces like paint chips, pieces of thermal blankets, screws/nuts/bolts, etc..
The volume of near space that is "polluted" is vast. It is a constantly evolving three dimensional environment with debris moving at all sorts of crazy trajectories that change frequently depending upon the solar wind, geomagnetic field and the swelling and contraction of our tenuous upper atmosphere.
It would be like searching the beach in Fiji, looking for a particular 1957 nickel. The efforts to chase down each individual piece of trash is much greater than the risks of that particular piece.
We need to;
1. Stop spewing little parts, disgards and trash into space.
2. Do a better job of tracking what is up there.
3. Harden satellites to be able to survive the impact from a very small object.
4. Come up with a clean way to dispose of old space hardware other than abandonment in "graveyard orbits".
Re:Space sized bin bag (Score:3, Insightful)
recycling (Score:3, Insightful)