
We’ve Already Passed the Tipping Point for Orbital Debris - vectorbunny
http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/satellites/weve-already-passed-the-tipping-point-for-orbital-debris?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IeeeSpectrumFullText+%28IEEE+Spectrum+Full+Text%29
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hermannj314
Identify the externalities that aren't being paid and make them get paid. And
if this means that we all end up paying more for services we use today that
create space debris, then fine.

The next generation is being fleeced by those with the means of production.
They extract as much profit as they can and ignore the damage left in their
wake. Added to that they fight tooth and nail at any government policy that
tries to make them pay for externalities they should rightfully assume.

Of course, the traditional capitalist model says suck what you can today and
then expect the spillover to get paid by the taxpayer tomorrow.

What a world we have left for all of humankind's children merely for the
benefit of the contemporary capitalist and consumer.

~~~
btilly
OK, who will make China pay a fee for junk they deliberately created in space
for military purposes?

See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-
satellite_mis...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-
satellite_missile_test) before complaining that I'm unfairly singling out
China.

~~~
m_for_monkey
Still, you are unfairly singling out China. From the article you linked:

"It was the first known successful satellite intercept test since 1985, when
the United States conducted a similar anti-satellite missile test"

"In February 2008 the US launched its own strike to destroy a malfunctioning
US satellite, which demonstrated to the world that it also had the capability
to strike in space"

~~~
btilly
China's test created far more debris than any previous incident, including the
US incident you point to. Furthermore China created that debris in a much
higher orbit so it will take much longer for it to naturally fall out of
orbit.

That single incident is responsible for something like 10% of all debris in
orbit that is large enough to be tracked by NASA.

~~~
m_for_monkey
It was not my intention to defend China. But what's with the other 90% of
debris? 40% USA, 40% Russia, 10% other is not far from the truth, I guess.

~~~
InclinedPlane
It's closer to 20% due to China's ASAT test and 80% due to the collective
spaceflight activities of _the entire world_ over the last half century. You
know, vs. one single event.

If China dumped as much garbage into the ocean in one event equal to 20% of
the entire world's ocean dumped garbage since 1957 you can be damned sure
they'd catch some flak for that.

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curiouscats
My uncle was at NASA (from very close to the beginning). One of his long term
projects was dealing with orbital debris. History of Orbital Debris 1961 to
1998
[http://ston.jsc.nasa.gov/collections/TRS/_techrep/TP-1999-20...](http://ston.jsc.nasa.gov/collections/TRS/_techrep/TP-1999-208856.pdf)

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kiba
There was a manga that specifically involves astronauts collecting space junks
and that manga is Planetes.

~~~
ascuttlefish
It's very well done, too. Great character development and a gripping story
arc. From my layperson's perspective, the science of orbital debris collection
is taken very seriously.

The opening sequence in the first episode powerfully illustrates the speed and
devastation caused by the intersection of the orbits of a simple bolt and a
passenger liner.

------
DanBC
Here's NASA's webpage for orbital debris.

(<http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/>)

It's fascinating. It has better graphics than the linked article. (The linked
article does have a link to this site, but not the front page and it's buried
down the article.)

~~~
ChuckMcM
Awesomest link from that refereence:
[http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/newsletter/pdfs/ODQNv16i1....](http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/newsletter/pdfs/ODQNv16i1.pdf)

The current newsletter on debris. Excellent data in there.

------
swang
My science teacher back in 1996 told the class about the immense amount of
garbage piling around orbit and told us that when we were older it would
become a serious problem and that whoever figured out how to be "space
garbagemen/women" would be very rich.

The class kinda laughed, space is so vast and who wants to be known as garbage
men?

Should have gotten my degree as a Space Debris Collector.

~~~
thejteam
DARPA is currently working on this now.

<http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/TTO/Programs/Phoenix.aspx>

Specifically, they are looking into ways to remotely salvage parts from
existing satellite and presumably remove the satellites from orbit.

------
ArbitraryLimits
I always thought this was the strongest technical argument against Star Wars
back in the 80s - all you have to do to defeat a sattelite-based system of any
kind is launch a load of gravel into orbit and wait a few days.

------
joshuahedlund
I remember hearing about the growing orbital debris problem awhile back and
thinking, Well, we've covered the surface area of the earth with a whole ton
of stuff, but when you fly in an airplane and look out, most of the surface
still looks almost completely untouched. Now the "surface area" of the orbit
is way bigger than the earth's surface area, and we don't have nearly as much
stuff up there yet, either. So shouldn't it be a long time before we start
having problems like this?

I suppose the big issue is that most of that stuff is moving. If everything on
the surface of the earth was constantly trying to circumscribe it, we'd have a
lot more stuff colliding than we already do...

~~~
mikeash
Don't look at the surface, look at the sky. You hardly ever see another
airplane except occasionally when near an airport.

And yet, mid-air collisions do happen, despite the systems in place to prevent
them.

The fact that all of this stuff is moving makes it a completely different
proposition. The fact that a collision just makes _more_ junk to go out and
collide with other stuff results in a potentially disastrous feedback loop.

~~~
rbanffy
> mid-air collisions do happen,

Airplanes are not evenly distributed. They follow well defined routes and
flight levels.

~~~
wtracy
Same goes for satellites.

------
ck2
Between this and the great pacific garbage patch, I think the human legacy is
going to be litter.

~~~
InclinedPlane
The great pacific garbage patch is rather overhyped. From what you hear and
the way some people describe it you'd think it would be like a sargasso sea of
garbage, but it's actually just an increased concentration of small bits of
plastic just under the surface of the ocean. If you were looking right at the
water in the densest part of the garbage patch you probably wouldn't even be
able to tell that the water was unusual.

For example, here's a typical picture illustrating the garbage patch:
[http://myecoaction.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/great-
paci...](http://myecoaction.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/great-pacific-
garbage-patch.jpg) However, it's a fraud, it's actually a picture from Manila
harbor. The fact that this isn't the deep ocean should be blatantly obvious by
the fact that there is a person in a canoe in it, and canoes are not well
known trans-pacific transportation vessels.

I'm not saying that the various oceanic gyre garbage patches aren't a problem,
but they certainly will not form a legacy for humanity, as they are pretty
much invisible.

~~~
ck2
The plastic NEVER goes away and is always increasing, not decreasing

<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/science/10patch.html>

------
ChuckMcM
I've been reading about space junk for a while, if we are in fact 'past the
tipping point' (as opposed to journalistic hyperbole) then you should be
planning how your App will work in a post-GPS world. Seriously. While certain
bands of orbit are currently more crowded than others, as the Chinese
satellite attack [1] demonstrated, the debris from collisions will be wide and
multiband. Further once it reaches that point the density is predicted to
prevent additional satellites from reaching useful orbit trying to get through
it (so more replacement Geo-sync satellites). Perhaps it will be the 21st
century's equivalent of land mines in terms of resource denial to unintended
victims.

Would make a great conference topic too, given SpaceX has a launch vehicle
that can get your idea to pretty much all of the orbital bands for $150M, what
might you do with a couple of tons of payload which would mitigate this
problem, and how can we compensate it? What if the US/China/USSRS/EU funded a
'bounty' that for every ton of junk de-orbited the person who de-orbited it
would get $1M.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-
satellite_mis...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-
satellite_missile_test)

~~~
btilly
The Kessler effect is supposed to take decades to make near Earth orbit
unusable.

If your app survives that long, changing operating systems is a more pressing
problem than the immanent destruction of GPS.

~~~
ChuckMcM
At a NASA talk on space debris (part of the Space Technology Grand Challenge
program at NASA [1]) the presenter mentioned that so called 'structured orbit'
systems (like Iridium and GPS) were particularly vulnerable because their
service depended on where they were in orbit and they had finite maneuvering
capability. So GPS destruction is a combination of satellites which run out of
gas swerving and jinking to avoid junk, and losing individual satellites due
to forced (de-orbit) or worse actual destruction.

It was by that reasoning that this presenter was describing the space junk
disaster as a sort of slow motion thing but the first indicator that you and I
would notice would be that GPS service goes away. Its also exponential in that
actual collisions threaten on 1 or 2 additional satellites but dozens in
orbits above and below.

Then he finished with current NASA timelines (about 25 years before a system
might be tested) and funding (0).

Granted he may have just been trying to rustle up funding for his pet project
but I found his reasoning pretty compelling.

[1]
[http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/503466main_space_tech_grand_challeng...](http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/503466main_space_tech_grand_challenges_12_02_10.pdf)

------
seanalltogether
Is this something that can be solved from the ground (high powered lasers)? Or
would we need mechanisms in space and up close to handle this kind of debris?

~~~
ble
There is the idea of a laser broom [1], a ground-based system for pushing
debris into more elliptical orbits that bring them closer to Earth at perigee.

It might not be feasible for political reasons; I imagine most designs would
also be excellent tools for disabling satellites, thus could start a space
arms race. (Both China and the US have blown up satellites, but both were done
with anti-satellite missiles; lasers might be more useful for starting a
disastrous space war.)

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_broom>

~~~
outworlder
The URSS has already blinded (temporarily) US satellites with lasers.

However, to permanently disable them, it seems that more power is required,
compared to adding velocity to small orbital debris.

~~~
ble
The article specifically mentions material ablation (vaporizing part of the
debris) rather than light pressure as the source of impulse.

If it could vaporize debris that came off of satellites or boosters or what
have you, it could vaporize parts of satellites. Possibly at the rate of the
metaphorical little bird that sharpens its beak on a mountain. :)

------
washedup
Any way to develop a business model off this problem? Orbital garbage
collectors. They would have to be traveling in the roughly the same orbit to
collect a single piece of trash; surely a head on collision with a small piece
of debris traveling at a relative speed of 10mi/sec would be devastating.

~~~
keeperofdakeys
I don't think there would be any hope of actually collecting the bits piece by
piece, the amount of fuel required to match trajectories alone makes it
infeasible. The best 'solution' would be to change the trajectory of the
garbage either away from the atmosphere, or into the atmosphere. Unfortunately
a lot of it won't completely burn up before it hits the ground, creating a few
more problems then just some broken satellites.

~~~
washedup
Good point.. maybe there are "rings", or orbits with a high concentration of
junk that justify the fuel?

~~~
keeperofdakeys
The real problem is the junk is travelling at high speeds, in many different
directions. So the only 'safe' way to collect it is to match the speed and
direction of each piece of junk, one at a time.

------
dkokelley
Don't the LEO objects have a natural loss rate (I.E., so many objects will
soon be vaporized as they fall back into the atmosphere)? Those objects are
designed to have a shorter lifespan (typically, ignoring the ISS). As for the
GEO objects, given their fixed station over earth, I imagine there is less
path-crossing, which would reduce the probability of an impact.

Assuming the LEO objects are a major danger to something critical like the
ISS, what would be the added cost of shielding? How much impact should the
material be able to absorb, and what would that weigh? As for the economics of
satellites, shielding seems like the next-best option to expensive tracking
and safe decommissioning of all objects, provided the shielding material isn't
too heavy as to be cost-prohibitive.

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shawndumas
[http://spectrum.ieee.org/img/09WOrbitalDebrisf1-134867493242...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/img/09WOrbitalDebrisf1-1348674932421.jpg)

~~~
panzagl
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big
it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's,
but that's just peanuts to space.

If shown to scale even the biggest satellite wouldn't take up a pixel.

~~~
oinksoft
Thus continues the reddit-ization of this website. A shame. At least cite the
man; "inside jokes" of this sort are tired.

~~~
panzagl
So are ad-hominem attacks.

The first line is a quote from Douglas Adams. Well known to anyone who has
tried to run a conjunction analysis and had to set the range to 50 km to get
something to show up.

~~~
oinksoft
Yes, it's quite plain that it is not the commenter's own voice. It is also a
short step from self-gratifying quote continuation threads.

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rbellio
Tractor beam? If someone could come up with one of those, that would work. No
huge energy loss due to traveling into the atmosphere. No worries about
refueling in orbit or potential collisions loss of life. Seems to me like that
could be a thing.

~~~
rbellio
Or how about a small propulsion system with a tether that can be carried to
LEO with a weather balloon and then propelled further if needed. You'd just
need like a 100 mile long wire cable to use with it. I'm sure that's doable,
right? :)

