Space Junk.

I'm new to this blogging thing. I can talk and talk, but when all of the sudden facing this blank posting space, its like "what do I talk about." So I asked Chris. He said Space Junk. He made an impassioned plea that space junk -- debris and dead satellites and so on, was the pressing issue that HAD to be addressed tonight. Apparently there's a lot of it. Considering we've only been putting things in space for less than 50 years, that's impressive. Or maybe not... my four year old could probably make that much of a mess in a month or less.



Space.com says, Thousands of nuts, bolts, gloves and other debris from space missions form an orbiting garbage dump around Earth, presenting a hazard to spacecraft. Gloves? I can hear Clara Sproat Glenn saying "I always tell Johnny to put away his things... I digress.

Some of the bits and pieces scream along at 17,500 mph... A 1999 study estimated there are some 4 million pounds of space junk in low-Earth orbit, just one part of a celestial sea of roughly 110,000 objects larger than 1 centimeter -- each big enough to damage a satellite or space-based telescope. Good thing my kids toys don't fly around the house (Tanner can wing a toy truck pretty fast, so you probably should be careful if you come over).

Some of the objects, baseball-sized and bigger, could threaten the lives of astronauts in a space shuttle or the International Space Station. As an example of the hazard, a tiny speck of paint from a satellite once dug a pit in a space shuttle window nearly a quarter-inch wide. Ouch. And we all thought crab was the "Deadliest Catch."

But there's more: Aware of the threat, the U.S. Space Command monitors space debris and other objects, reporting directly to NASA and other agencies whenever there's threat of an orbital impact. Who knew there was such a thing as U.S. Space Command (sounds made up for a movie, no?)! And once they report it to NASA, what do they do about it? I mean, really, if there was such an easy solution, we could just clean it up, no?

Well, clearly we should find a way -- is this that hard to figure out? Perhaps all the crazy rocket science types still have their moms cleaning their rooms for them, but it seems pretty clear to me that it's easier to pick up your house periodically versus the-night-before-the-cleaning-woman is-coming-tomorrow-dash.

Doesn't this apply to space too? Duh.