ISS Nearly Clobbered By Space Debris 131
erice writes "A chuck of space debris came within 335 meters of the space station, forcing the crews to head to their escape capsules and prepare for emergency evacuation to Earth. '[NASA's] Associate Administrator for Space Operations, Bill Gerstenmaier, said it was the closest a debris object had ever come to the station. An analysis was now underway to try to understand its origin, he added.'"
Re:Shielding Technology Need (Score:4, Insightful)
Even Low-Earth orbit that the ISS flies in isn't safe without it.
Actually, I would guess that LEO is the most dangerous places to be, debris-wise. All debris has to pass through LEO eventually as it enters the atmosphere, and it has the smallest volume of space, so statistically speaking, I'd think the chances of getting hit are by far the highest in LEO.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean, "maybe now the Chinese will stop blowing up their own satellites as a show of strength"?
the debris cloud of Fengyun 1-C was only 17% of the trackable debris [nasa.gov] in Aug 2007 :)
Only? Humans have been putting junk into earth orbit for half a century. That a one-time event now accounts for 17% of all trackable debris is actually kind of shocking.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you serious? We've been getting stuff to space for 67 years (Germany's V-2 launch in 1944) and one even accounts for almost 1/5 of all trackabe debris?
And you call that *only*.