Space-Junk Gallery

[Bill Morris]

Here's a nice gallery of maps of current orbital debris:

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/ESOC/SEMN2VM5NDF_mg_1.html

 

[Lonestar]

Wow, all that junk in orbit is rather worrying, I know it'll burn up before it hits the Earth, but still...

Must be a problem for anything that lifts off from the planet.

Cool pictures though.

 

[Squiggy]

It's not really an issue...since space is really REALLY big and those satellites in the pics aren't to scale.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Its still garbage and garbage should be cleaned up.

 

[Bill Morris]

Wouldn't it be fun to clean up just what's in low Earth orbit, recycle it aboard the clean-up ships, and use it to build a new space station or ships?--not that we have the means to do that! Besides, it's probably all too radioactive, anyway.

 

[SamuraiBlue]

Wouldn't it be fun to clean up just what's in low Earth orbit, recycle it aboard the clean-up ships, and use it to build a new space station or ships?--not that we have the means to do that! Besides, it's probably all too radioactive, anyway.

Watch the anime "Planetes", that is exactly what they are doing.
Anybody ever heard of the Kessler Syndrome?
With space debris floating around in orbit the more we exploiting the larger the possibility of it happening and a$$hole nations experimenting space weapons the sooner we see it become a reality.

Think it is a joke?
Alot of satellites become worthless piece of junk every year and we humans send more to replace them. Think what the situation will be twenty years further along the road. The space plane disaster scenario introduced within "Planetes" is closer to reality then some might actually think.

 

[Brent]

Aliens probably view our planet like we view some houses that have old cars in the front yard with no wheels, up on bricks.

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

Is there any sort of a sticky pad (for want of a better term) that we could launch into orbit to clean it all up? I see there is a "laser broom" that NASA use to help the ISS.