China creates space debris, intentionally
CNN is running an article about how China has successfully testing an anti-satellite missile on one of their own old weather satellites. After three failures, a missile successfully destroyed the satellite, which was in orbit at 537 miles above the Earth. As low-Earth orbits go, that is actually pretty high (the International Space Station, for instance, is only 200 miles up, meaning it could easily be destroyed by one of these missiles). The CNN article goes into depth about all of the political implications of this, and they are important, but they neglect one important issue.
It’s really, really, really mind-bogglingly stupid to create more orbital debris, and by blowing up a satellite, China has now created thousands more pieces of debris. Space is already littered with innumerable amounts of debris, ranging from tiny flecks of paint all the way up to spent rocket boosters and dead satellites. Since there’s no air friction in space, these small bits are moving really, really quickly, and even a paint fleck can be deadly. We have already suffered damage in the past from space debris: satellites have been lost and space shuttles and the ISS have been damaged, all because of space debris. NASA does its damnedest to try and keep track of it all, but of course, they aren’t and can’t be perfect, and at some point in the future there is going to be a genuine disaster, involving the loss of human lives, hundreds of millions of dollars of space hardware, or both. This disaster could well be caused by debris from China’s absolutely idiotic and unnecessary intentional catastrophic collision in space.
The worst part about this, though, is that we are now one step closer to seeing the Kessler Syndrome start to manifest itself. The Kessler Syndrome is basically an orbital doomsday scenario that cuts off mankind’s access to space for thousands of years. The way it works is, some random collision occurs, creating many bits of space debris in orbit. These debris, in turn, end up hitting other things, shredding them, creating even more debris, in a Domino-like fashion. Eventually, everything in orbit is utterly destroyed, and the space around Earth is so polluted with space junk that it is impossible to even launch anything anymore, as it would be destroyed by random impacts almost immediately upon exiting the atmosphere. The scary thing is, the Kessler syndrome is already possible with the current amount of hardware we have in space. Luckily, almost all of it is up there in large controlled chunks, but all it could take is one apocalyptic collision to set a terrible chain of events into motion. This is why China’s test is so mind-numbingly stupid. Because once the Kessler Syndrome takes effect, the only solution with current technology is to wait it out, letting the space debris hit each other, lose momentum, and gradually burn up in the atmosphere. The process takes thousands of years before low orbit is safe to traverse again.
A schematic showing the locations of known debris in Earth orbit. Note the heavy concentrations in low-Earth orbit and geostationary orbit (click for larger view).
Update 2008-02-14: It looks like the United States are jealous of China’s screw-up in this regard, and want to create some space debris of their own! How colossally and terminally short-sighted can humanity get?!
December 30th, 2007 at 01:26
i want to new wallpaper.
April 5th, 2008 at 13:24
SOUNDS LIKE AN OPPURTUNITY FOR A FUTURE VEHTURE OF PICKING UP TRASH IN SPACE. OR SCAVENING. AS SOON AS WE CAN GET UP THERE COMMERCIALLY WE CAN CLEAN IT UP. I’M SURE SOMEONE WOULD PAY SOMEONE TO DO THIS.
April 11th, 2008 at 18:31
[...] many million dollar communications satellite is going to waste and we leave another large piece of space debris in Earth orbit. Absolutely [...]
April 12th, 2008 at 00:23
[...] China creates space debris, intentionally [...]
April 22nd, 2008 at 23:53
This is not good…. if they have missiles that can take out satellites that can pose a great threat to people… and for your statement garzafzmily; The human race is going to destroy each other before we can reach space commercially
April 23rd, 2008 at 07:37
good, really good
I am offering for the job of space junk gatherer, it should be paid well :)
September 6th, 2008 at 23:01
That job of space debris “trash collector” already has an anime of its own. A serious one, at that.
Called: “Planetes”. Deals with that topic, as well as a few other concerns of the near-term use of, and life in, space.
October 12th, 2008 at 08:30
lasers
February 8th, 2009 at 23:09
seeker, think positive. knacker, i dont know what shining a light at it will do, even with high intensity lasers its just gonna heat up an be a hunk of hot for a few hours. its still gonna be speeding around at 18,000 mph. a laser is just a beam of light and has no measurable mass therefore no measurable inertia so it cant push it away either. no i agree with the tracs collecting commercially, the only problem with it i see is what do you do with it once uve got it? bringin it back is not a great idea, were polluted enough down here as it is. i think it should be collected and strapped together at a very high orbit. then recycle it for new, more permenant space ventures.
February 10th, 2009 at 20:04
Yeah, seeker, think positive. We may wipe out only half to 3/4ths of the human race, creating a situation akin to the end of the plague, in which population had dropped off so much that almost everyone was rich and had enough resources, leading to the Renaissance.
February 13th, 2009 at 15:18
Scott, lasers could be attached to satellites to destroy smaller pieces of debris that threaten a space vehicle not to just move them “out of the way.”
February 15th, 2009 at 07:56
Nicole: Not likely at all. Unfortunately, lasers don’t work in the real world the same way that they do in, say, Star Wars. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to create a laser beam with the kind of effect you’d be looking for, energy that is viciously lacking in space. Also, in space, the tiniest particle of debris is dangerous. Remember that whole conservation of mass thing; lasers won’t evaporate debris, they’ll simply turn it into smaller chunks, which is more dangerous.
The only way to deal with space debris is to deorbit it, which is incredibly hard.
February 17th, 2009 at 08:42
Why not a rocket with a giant magnet, fly it thru orbit and into space hehehehe If theirs no gravity the metalic objects should change course to the magnet and go with the rocket. Providing it doesn’t get oblerated by the moving pieces lol
February 20th, 2009 at 08:01
Todd, a couple of problems with that. The electromagnetic force, like gravity, is affected by the inverse-square law. You can test this yourself by holding two magnets in your hands close together. Then move them twice that distance apart. The force you feel between them (either attractive or repulsive depending on pole alignment) will decrease by four times. Move them three times as far apart and the force decreases by nine times, etc. So it simply won’t work to sweep up debris from all but the smallest distances.
Additionally, you would need a very powerful magnet. A permanent magnet is right out of the question, as for the size you’d need it’d be too difficult to launch into orbit. So you’d need a powerful electromagnet, but this creates yet another problem: where will you get all the electricity to power it?
And lastly, a lot of the space junk up there isn’t ferrous. Because things we put into space need to be as light as possible, we tend to make them out of lighter materials, such as plastics and aluminum, which are not magnetic. Keep in mind the relative orbital speeds of space debris — many thousands of feet per second — and you realize why it doesn’t particularly matter what the debris is made of in terms of assessing its deadliness.
So I’m not sure what a solution would even be. That’s why the Kessler Syndrome is so dangerous.
March 2nd, 2009 at 22:33
send up more debris to accelerate the process of orbital decay of these objects.
March 13th, 2009 at 02:03
Scott and J are onto something… Send up more garbage, lash it all together with the other crap, and name it, “Trash Planet II” (Earth, being the first “Trash Planet”)
See? We can be God, too! Destroy one planet, and create a new one from some of the junk from the first one, kinda like making Eve, from Adam’s rib, or the Moon, from the Earth.
March 13th, 2009 at 12:16
nicole - don’t you think there will be even more smaller pieces if they destroy it with laser ? That means more of them and more danger !!! By pushing them away with some force will mean that they will at least go a bit farther away… which makes sense.
March 16th, 2009 at 16:09
Todd’s idea may not work like that, but a vast network of microsats working on the same principle might work well. I mean, if you can just get a portion of the debris into trackable-sized chunks, that alone would help significantly.
At least until we have Trek-style Bussard collectors, anyway.
March 24th, 2009 at 13:42
Hey, maybe it’s a great opportunity to invest in Roomba. They’d create a bunch of mass-dense objects that simply get in the way of the zooming particles and absorb them. Make the objects so that they do not disintegrate, but become a substrate to which everything else sticks. After these Spaceba have been up for a while, sweeping all the tiny particles up, then send up a bigger unit, an Orba, to sweep up the big pieces. Eventually, rendezvous with the Orba, attach propellant rockets, and either decelerate the junk for burn-up in Earth’s atmosphere, or accelerate the junk to send it on a track toward the sun, where it will burn up.
March 24th, 2009 at 19:37
That’s… a much better idea.