Possible Collision Between Cube-satellite and Old Space Junk 74
photonic writes "The BBC is reporting on a possible collision between Ecuador's first satellite (a small cubesat) and debris from an upper stage of an old Russian rocket. If confirmed, this might be the third case in recent years, after a high-speed collision of an Iridium satellite with a dead Russian satellite in 2009 and a collision earlier this year between a Russian laser reflector (which can be tracked very accurately) and a tiny piece of a debris from a Chinese weather satellite that was destroyed in a missile test."
Fiction begets reality (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess it was only a matter of time before Planetes [wikipedia.org] became relevant.
Re:Kessler Syndrome (Score:4, Interesting)
Surely it's not Kessler syndrome until you have debris from one collision causing a further collision? In each of the incidents described above, an existing piece of debris not originating in a collision was the cause of the incident.
Re:Kessler Syndrome (Score:4, Interesting)
Kessler syndrome is a self-sustaining chain reaction, I really don't think that deliberate collisions count towards it.
Re:Here goes the Ecuadorian Space program (Score:2, Interesting)
Space tech is the ONLY technology that's capable of preventing the extinction of the "Human Race"? Uhm. I heard a phrase once. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. If we're dumb enough for long enough we'll learn to live better on this planet, probably before we cause our own *total* annihilation. You obviously have zero confidence that there's any chance that we will survive for long enough to evolve away from our selfish, destructive behaviors. I hate to say it but, even Global Thermonuclear War wouldn't make us extinct, just *mostly* extinct, and it would force change, whether that change would be positive or not is up to us.
And please don't make some argument about the Earth being impermanent or Sol entering its red phase and cooking us before we're enveloped into it. And don't give me any The Day After Tomorrow scenarios either... We've got a LOT of time to figure out better ways of being, and even if we make it a lot worse in the meantime, some of us will live, and the more we're squeezed the harder it will be to ignore. Space becomes our only option, only if we FAIL at actually becoming a civilization on this planet. And to be honest, I damn well hope we get it right on this marble before we start polluting everywhere else like the virus that we resemble.
what kinds of spikes do such comments cause? (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if someone who watches /. but also monitors torrent/nzb index searchers, ever sees a correlation. Or if people who run indexes just think, "weird, lots of people suddenly searching for 'planetes' today. WTF?" and they never know why? Anyway, downloading the first few episodes right now...