Once you've loaded the link below, visually it pretty much says it all.
http://www.alexras.info/code/orbital_objects/
Meh! What a mess!
http://www.alexras.info/code/orbital_objects/
Meh! What a mess!
Astronomy / Space The horror of it! (Orbital Objects)
- Thread starter PacalB
- Start date
The human race is accustomed to leave behind her, mountains of waste.
the land, the oceans and now, the space. Hopeless
the land, the oceans and now, the space. Hopeless
Yes, that's a sad but true fact Patrick. I wonder if we as a species will ever get beyond this kind of thing? It's also seems the amount of plastic in the oceans has pretty much doomed us all long term. Overpopulation mixed with the inability to see beyond our own personal life spans and effects, it's the bane of humanity.
Globally it seems like Easter Island all over again. Only difference being, this time we are dragging thousands of other animal species to premature extinction. It's all pretty grim when you actually take time out to look at it.
As someone who loves watching birds along the coasts and in mountains on long distance hikes, seeing images like this is pretty unsettling.
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That bird swallowed a whole lighter?
Unfortunate, tragic, but still pretty dumb.
Unfortunate, tragic, but still pretty dumb.
"Pretty dumb" you say Asp? Let me ask you? Do you or have you ever eaten fish?
http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_palumbi_following_the_mercury_trail
When the orbital mess starts to constrain the profit that can be made from space I expect we'll see action quickly. Until then expect business as usual.
Yep, well we are most definitely getting there.
It'll be interesting to to see how Earth's orbital space is portrayed in ED.
The thing is, if you take into account the huge size of earth and the relatively small size of the debris, what appear like a clutter in the link above is still almost completely empty. I'm not sure the profitable aspect of space has to worry anytime soon. The scientific and manned exploration part, on the other hand...
It's not up there forever either, all of it will be in decaying orbits that will eventually result in the objects burning up.
There's a lot of communications, navigation, surveying and monitoring that goes on in space for a profit. Sometimes commercial launches also have to go through the mess. When they start losing expensive satellites and launch vehicles on a regular basis, they'll start complaining.
But the area of space in orbit around the earth that is most useful for us is a pretty small and we are quickly filling that area with trash, about 60 years into our spacefaring history and it is already an issue. Imagine another 60 years.
That's not quite true. As I understand it, pretty much every thing in low earth orbit will come back down. However stuff further away will stay up there pretty much forever. If the mission planners were nice, the best they seem to do is put it in a parking orbit freeing up its 'useful' spot for something else...
As it stands the ISS is frequently having to dodge satellites and other space junk.
A recent episode of Astronomy Cast actually talked about this quite in depth...
Eid
Interesting. What happened in late 2006 to almost double the number of collision fragments? Improvements in detection or a big crash?
I expect that the numbers will continue to rise until the risk and the associated hardware insurance premiums increase enough to make it worthwhile to start a clean up. A cynic, however, might suggest that once the insurance costs rise enough to offset the additional energy costs there will be commercial pressure to open up an Antarctic launch site
I expect that the numbers will continue to rise until the risk and the associated hardware insurance premiums increase enough to make it worthwhile to start a clean up. A cynic, however, might suggest that once the insurance costs rise enough to offset the additional energy costs there will be commercial pressure to open up an Antarctic launch site
Basically, this happened ...
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_missile_test
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/18/AR2007011801029.html
And there's the spike in debris.
Looks messy alright. Perhaps it might spur on the development of shields for ships mind you.
