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"Orbiting Junk, Once a Nuisance, Is Now a Threat" - NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/sc...ce/06orbi.html
Orbiting Junk, Once a Nuisance, Is Now a Threat By WILLIAM J. BROAD Published: February 6, 2007 For decades, space experts have worried that a speeding bit of orbital debris might one day smash a large spacecraft into hundreds of pieces and start a chain reaction, a slow cascade of collisions that would expand for centuries, spreading chaos through the heavens. In the last decade or so, as scientists came to agree that the number of objects in orbit had surpassed a critical mass - or, in their terms, the critical spatial density, the point at which a chain reaction becomes inevitable - they grew more anxious. Early this year, after a half-century of growth, the federal list of detectable objects (four inches wide or larger) reached 10,000, including dead satellites, spent rocket stages, a camera, a hand tool and junkyards of whirling debris left over from chance explosions and destructive tests. Now, experts say, China's test on Jan. 11 of an antisatellite rocket that shattered an old satellite into hundreds of large fragments means the chain reaction will most likely start sooner. If their predictions are right, the cascade could put billions of dollars' worth of advanced satellites at risk and eventually threaten to limit humanity's reach for the stars. Federal and private experts say that early estimates of 800 pieces of detectable debris from the shattering of the satellite will grow to nearly 1,000 as observations continue by tracking radars and space cameras. At either number, it is the worst such episode in space history. Today, next year or next decade, some piece of whirling debris will start the cascade, experts say. "It's inevitable," said Nicholas L. Johnson, chief scientist for orbital debris at the National Aeronautics and Space Admin- istration. "A significant piece of debris will run into an old rocket body, and that will create more debris. It's a bad situation." Geoffrey E. Forden, an arms expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is analyzing the Chinese satellite debris, said China perhaps failed to realize the magnitude of the test's indirect hazards. Dr. Forden suggested that Chinese engineers might have understood the risks but failed to communicate them. In China, he said, "the decision process is still so opaque that maybe they didn't know who to talk to. Maybe you have a disconnect between the engineers and the people who think about policy." China, experts note, has 39 satellites of its own - many of them now facing a heightened risk of destruction. Politically, the situation is delicate. In recent years China has played a growing international role in fighting the proliferation of space junk. In 2002, for instance, it joined with other space- faring nations to suggest voluntary guidelines for debris control. In April, Beijing is to play host to the annual meeting of the advocacy group, known as the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee. Donald J. Kessler, a former head of the orbital debris program at NASA and a pioneer analyst of the space threat, said Chinese officials at the forum would probably feel "some embarrassment." Mr. Kessler said Western analysts agreed that China's new satellite fragments would speed the chain reaction's onset. "If the Chinese didn't do the test, it would still happen," he said. "It just wouldn't happen as quickly." Last week in Beijing, a foreign ministry spokeswoman failed to respond directly to a debris question. Asked if the satellite's remains would threaten other spacecraft, she asserted that China's policy was to keep space free of weapons. "We are ready to strengthen international cooperation in this regard," the spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, told reporters. Cascade warnings began as early as 1978. Mr. Kessler and his NASA colleague, Burton G. Cour-Palais, wrote in The Journal of Geophysical Research that speeding junk that formed more junk would produce "an exponential increase in the number of objects with time, creating a belt of debris around the Earth." During the cold war, Moscow and Washington generally ignored the danger and, from 1968 to 1986, conducted more than 20 tests of antisatellite arms that created clouds of jagged scraps. Often, they did so at low altitudes from which the resulting debris soon plunged earthward. Still, the number of objects grew as more nations launched rockets and satellites into orbit. In 1995, as the count passed 8,000, the National Academy of Sciences warned in a thick report that some crowded orbits appeared to have already reached the "critical density" needed to sustain a chain reaction. A year later, apprehension rose as the fuel tank of an abandoned American rocket engine exploded, breaking the craft into 713 detectable fragments - until now, the record. Amid such developments, space experts identified the first collisions that threatened to start a chain reaction, putting analysts increasingly on edge. On Jan. 17, 2005, for instance, a piece of speeding debris from an exploded Chinese rocket collided with a derelict American rocket body that had been shot into space 31 years earlier. Warily, investigators searched though orbital neighborhoods but found to their relief that the crackup had produced only four pieces of detectable debris. A year later, Mr. Johnson, the chief scientist for NASA's orbital debris program, and his colleague J. -C. Liou, published an article in the journal Science that detailed the growing threat. They said orbits were now so cluttered that the chain reaction was sure to start even if spacefaring nations refrained from launching any more spacecraft. "The environment is unstable," they wrote, "and collisions will become the most dominant debris-generating mechanism." It was in this atmosphere of rising tension that China last month fired a rocket into space that shattered an old weather satellite - its first successful test of an antisatellite weapon. David C. Wright, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a private group in Cambridge, Mass., calculated that the old satellite had broken into 1,000 fragments four inches wide or larger, and millions of smaller ones. Federal sky-watchers who catalogue objects in the Earth orbit work slowly and deliberately. As of yesterday, they publicly listed 647 detectable pieces of the satellite but were said to be tracking hundreds more. The breakup was dangerous because the satellite's orbit was relatively high, some 530 miles up. That means the debris will remain in space for tens, thousands or even millions of years. Mr. Kessler, the former NASA official, now a private consultant in Asheville, N.C., said China might have chosen a relatively high target to avoid directly threatening the International Space Station and its astronaut crew, which orbit at a height of about 220 miles. "Maybe the choice was to endanger the station in the short term or to cause a long-term problem," he said. "Maybe that forced them to raise the orbit." Even so, the paths of the speeding Chinese debris, following the laws of physics and of celestial mechanics, expanded in many directions, including upward and downward. As of last week, outliers from the central cloud stretched from roughly 100 miles to more than 2,000 miles above the Earth. A solution to the cascade threat exists but is costly. In his Science paper and in recent interviews, Mr. Johnson of NASA argued that the only sure answer was environmental remediation, including the removal of existing large objects from orbit. Robots might install rocket engines to send dead spacecraft careering back into the atmosphere, or ground-based lasers might be used to zap debris. The bad news, Mr. Johnson said in his paper, is that "for the near term, no single remediation technique appears to be both technically feasible and economically viable." If nothing is done, a kind of orbital crisis might ensue that is known as the Kessler Syndrome, after Mr. Kessler. A staple of science fiction, it holds that the space around Earth becomes so riddled with junk that launchings are almost impossible. Vehicles that entered space would quickly be destroyed. In an interview, Mr. Kessler called the worst-case scenario an exaggeration. "It's been overdone," he said of the syndrome. Still, he warned of an economic barrier to space exploration that could arise. To fight debris, he said, designers will have to give spacecraft more and more shielding, struggling to protect the craft from destruction and making them heavier and more costly in the process. At some point, he said, perhaps centuries from now, the costs will outweigh the benefits. "It gets more and more expensive," he said. "Sooner or later it gets too expensive to do business in space." .. .. -- |
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"Orbiting Junk, Once a Nuisance, Is Now a Threat" - NY Times
"(David P.)" wrote in message oups.com... http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/sc...ce/06orbi.html Orbiting Junk, Once a Nuisance, Is Now a Threat By WILLIAM J. BROAD Published: February 6, 2007 For decades, space experts have worried that a speeding bit of orbital debris might one day smash a large spacecraft into hundreds of pieces and start a chain reaction, a slow cascade of collisions that would expand for centuries, spreading chaos through the heavens. In the last decade or so, as scientists came to agree that the number of objects in orbit had surpassed a critical mass - or, in their terms, the critical spatial density, the point at which a chain reaction becomes inevitable - they grew more anxious. Early this year, after a half-century of growth, the federal list of detectable objects (four inches wide or larger) reached 10,000, including dead satellites, spent rocket stages, a camera, a hand tool and junkyards of whirling debris left over from chance explosions and destructive tests. Now, experts say, China's test on Jan. 11 of an antisatellite rocket that shattered an old satellite into hundreds of large fragments means the chain reaction will most likely start sooner. If their predictions are right, the cascade could put billions of dollars' worth of advanced satellites at risk and eventually threaten to limit humanity's reach for the stars. Federal and private experts say that early estimates of 800 pieces of detectable debris from the shattering of the satellite will grow to nearly 1,000 as observations continue by tracking radars and space cameras. At either number, it is the worst such episode in space history. Today, next year or next decade, some piece of whirling debris will start the cascade, experts say. "It's inevitable," said Nicholas L. Johnson, chief scientist for orbital debris at the National Aeronautics and Space Admin- istration. "A significant piece of debris will run into an old rocket body, and that will create more debris. It's a bad situation." Geoffrey E. Forden, an arms expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is analyzing the Chinese satellite debris, said China perhaps failed to realize the magnitude of the test's indirect hazards. Dr. Forden suggested that Chinese engineers might have understood the risks but failed to communicate them. In China, he said, "the decision process is still so opaque that maybe they didn't know who to talk to. Maybe you have a disconnect between the engineers and the people who think about policy." China, experts note, has 39 satellites of its own - many of them now facing a heightened risk of destruction. Politically, the situation is delicate. In recent years China has played a growing international role in fighting the proliferation of space junk. In 2002, for instance, it joined with other space- faring nations to suggest voluntary guidelines for debris control. In April, Beijing is to play host to the annual meeting of the advocacy group, known as the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee. Donald J. Kessler, a former head of the orbital debris program at NASA and a pioneer analyst of the space threat, said Chinese officials at the forum would probably feel "some embarrassment." Mr. Kessler said Western analysts agreed that China's new satellite fragments would speed the chain reaction's onset. "If the Chinese didn't do the test, it would still happen," he said. "It just wouldn't happen as quickly." Last week in Beijing, a foreign ministry spokeswoman failed to respond directly to a debris question. Asked if the satellite's remains would threaten other spacecraft, she asserted that China's policy was to keep space free of weapons. "We are ready to strengthen international cooperation in this regard," the spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, told reporters. Cascade warnings began as early as 1978. Mr. Kessler and his NASA colleague, Burton G. Cour-Palais, wrote in The Journal of Geophysical Research that speeding junk that formed more junk would produce "an exponential increase in the number of objects with time, creating a belt of debris around the Earth." During the cold war, Moscow and Washington generally ignored the danger and, from 1968 to 1986, conducted more than 20 tests of antisatellite arms that created clouds of jagged scraps. Often, they did so at low altitudes from which the resulting debris soon plunged earthward. Still, the number of objects grew as more nations launched rockets and satellites into orbit. In 1995, as the count passed 8,000, the National Academy of Sciences warned in a thick report that some crowded orbits appeared to have already reached the "critical density" needed to sustain a chain reaction. A year later, apprehension rose as the fuel tank of an abandoned American rocket engine exploded, breaking the craft into 713 detectable fragments - until now, the record. Amid such developments, space experts identified the first collisions that threatened to start a chain reaction, putting analysts increasingly on edge. On Jan. 17, 2005, for instance, a piece of speeding debris from an exploded Chinese rocket collided with a derelict American rocket body that had been shot into space 31 years earlier. Warily, investigators searched though orbital neighborhoods but found to their relief that the crackup had produced only four pieces of detectable debris. A year later, Mr. Johnson, the chief scientist for NASA's orbital debris program, and his colleague J. -C. Liou, published an article in the journal Science that detailed the growing threat. They said orbits were now so cluttered that the chain reaction was sure to start even if spacefaring nations refrained from launching any more spacecraft. "The environment is unstable," they wrote, "and collisions will become the most dominant debris-generating mechanism." It was in this atmosphere of rising tension that China last month fired a rocket into space that shattered an old weather satellite - its first successful test of an antisatellite weapon. David C. Wright, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a private group in Cambridge, Mass., calculated that the old satellite had broken into 1,000 fragments four inches wide or larger, and millions of smaller ones. Federal sky-watchers who catalogue objects in the Earth orbit work slowly and deliberately. As of yesterday, they publicly listed 647 detectable pieces of the satellite but were said to be tracking hundreds more. The breakup was dangerous because the satellite's orbit was relatively high, some 530 miles up. That means the debris will remain in space for tens, thousands or even millions of years. Mr. Kessler, the former NASA official, now a private consultant in Asheville, N.C., said China might have chosen a relatively high target to avoid directly threatening the International Space Station and its astronaut crew, which orbit at a height of about 220 miles. "Maybe the choice was to endanger the station in the short term or to cause a long-term problem," he said. "Maybe that forced them to raise the orbit." Even so, the paths of the speeding Chinese debris, following the laws of physics and of celestial mechanics, expanded in many directions, including upward and downward. As of last week, outliers from the central cloud stretched from roughly 100 miles to more than 2,000 miles above the Earth. A solution to the cascade threat exists but is costly. In his Science paper and in recent interviews, Mr. Johnson of NASA argued that the only sure answer was environmental remediation, including the removal of existing large objects from orbit. Robots might install rocket engines to send dead spacecraft careering back into the atmosphere, or ground-based lasers might be used to zap debris. The bad news, Mr. Johnson said in his paper, is that "for the near term, no single remediation technique appears to be both technically feasible and economically viable." If nothing is done, a kind of orbital crisis might ensue that is known as the Kessler Syndrome, after Mr. Kessler. A staple of science fiction, it holds that the space around Earth becomes so riddled with junk that launchings are almost impossible. Vehicles that entered space would quickly be destroyed. In an interview, Mr. Kessler called the worst-case scenario an exaggeration. "It's been overdone," he said of the syndrome. Still, he warned of an economic barrier to space exploration that could arise. To fight debris, he said, designers will have to give spacecraft more and more shielding, struggling to protect the craft from destruction and making them heavier and more costly in the process. At some point, he said, perhaps centuries from now, the costs will outweigh the benefits. "It gets more and more expensive," he said. "Sooner or later it gets too expensive to do business in space." When insane bullies like George Bush get into office, and saber rattle because they think they have military superiority because of space technology, such as GPS oriented weapons, and battle field control, you can bet that it plants the seed for some nation to explode an atomic or fragment weapon in space to level the playing field. I dare say that some nation, perhaps Russia, China, or Iran (Or even France, Germany, Argentina, etc.) will decide to level the playing field in the next twenty years, and render the use of space for military and other purposes, useless. As can be seen from history, after Rome imposed on other peoples for a long time, and were discovered to be a paper tiger, the other nations started to detach from Rome, build defenses, and rip up the Roman roads and forts. Bush has set the same forces in motion. No nation will allow a bully nation to dominate the world with space military technology, when it can be easily eliminated. If space is neutralized, can you imagine an insane leader like Bush starting a land war against Russia, China, Iran, etc??? The entire world respected and trusted America, and looked to America for leadership in space, communications, business, standards, diplomacy, etc. and Bush ****ed it all away and set the stage for the second Dark Age. -- Tom Potter *** Time Magazine Person of the Year 2006 *** http://home.earthlink.net/~tdp/ http://tdp1001.googlepages.com/home http://no-turtles.com http://www.frappr.com/tompotter http://photos.yahoo.com/tdp1001 http://spaces.msn.com/tdp1001 http://www.flickr.com/photos/tom-potter/ http://tom-potter.blogspot.com -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com |
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"Orbiting Junk, Once a Nuisance, Is Now a Threat" - NY Times
"Tom Potter" wrote:
"(David P.)" wrote in message Now, experts say, China's test on Jan. 11 of an antisatellite rocket that shattered an old satellite into hundreds of large fragments means the chain reaction will most likely start sooner. Oh, joy. There's more totally off-topic shovelware from talk.bizarre's very own one man plague of kook, Pollutka. I suppose it's here to go along with Pollutka's totally off-topic anagram spam. That makes up the ham and eggs of a brain-burned drunk's habitual addicted behavior of making a nuisance of himself because that's all he has left to be, all meaning to his life otherwise lost down a bottle long, long ago. When insane bullies like George Bush get into office, and saber rattle because they think they have military superiority because of space technology, such as GPS oriented weapons, and battle field control, you can bet that it plants the seed for some nation to explode an atomic or fragment weapon in space to level the playing field. It's so *nice* that Usenet exists so that insane people like, which one is this, oh yes, "Tom Potter", have a chance to blame the ill considered actions of one party on some utterly unrelated second party, as a way to express their undying hatred for that second party. Were it not for Usenet, the froth "Tom Potter" has building up inside would remain unvented, and an explosion would be the inevitable result, spraying ineptitude and stupidity everywhere. One need only look at that signature full of links that "Tom Potter" uses constantly, to recognize one sure sign of a full gonzo Usenet kook. Oh, well, nil novi sub soli. They'll be a new Usenet kook, or an old one revenant, here tomorrow too. HTH xanthian. |
#5
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"Orbiting Junk, Once a Nuisance, Is Now a Threat" - NY Times
"Tom Potter" wrote in message .. . "(David P.)" wrote in message oups.com... http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/sc...ce/06orbi.html Orbiting Junk, Once a Nuisance, Is Now a Threat By WILLIAM J. BROAD Published: February 6, 2007 For decades, space experts have worried that a speeding bit of orbital debris might one day smash a large spacecraft into hundreds of pieces and start a chain reaction, a slow cascade of collisions that would expand for centuries, spreading chaos through the heavens. In the last decade or so, as scientists came to agree that the number of objects in orbit had surpassed a critical mass - or, in their terms, the critical spatial density, the point at which a chain reaction becomes inevitable - they grew more anxious. Early this year, after a half-century of growth, the federal list of detectable objects (four inches wide or larger) reached 10,000, including dead satellites, spent rocket stages, a camera, a hand tool and junkyards of whirling debris left over from chance explosions and destructive tests. Now, experts say, China's test on Jan. 11 of an antisatellite rocket that shattered an old satellite into hundreds of large fragments means the chain reaction will most likely start sooner. If their predictions are right, the cascade could put billions of dollars' worth of advanced satellites at risk and eventually threaten to limit humanity's reach for the stars. Federal and private experts say that early estimates of 800 pieces of detectable debris from the shattering of the satellite will grow to nearly 1,000 as observations continue by tracking radars and space cameras. At either number, it is the worst such episode in space history. Today, next year or next decade, some piece of whirling debris will start the cascade, experts say. "It's inevitable," said Nicholas L. Johnson, chief scientist for orbital debris at the National Aeronautics and Space Admin- istration. "A significant piece of debris will run into an old rocket body, and that will create more debris. It's a bad situation." Geoffrey E. Forden, an arms expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is analyzing the Chinese satellite debris, said China perhaps failed to realize the magnitude of the test's indirect hazards. Dr. Forden suggested that Chinese engineers might have understood the risks but failed to communicate them. In China, he said, "the decision process is still so opaque that maybe they didn't know who to talk to. Maybe you have a disconnect between the engineers and the people who think about policy." China, experts note, has 39 satellites of its own - many of them now facing a heightened risk of destruction. Politically, the situation is delicate. In recent years China has played a growing international role in fighting the proliferation of space junk. In 2002, for instance, it joined with other space- faring nations to suggest voluntary guidelines for debris control. In April, Beijing is to play host to the annual meeting of the advocacy group, known as the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee. Donald J. Kessler, a former head of the orbital debris program at NASA and a pioneer analyst of the space threat, said Chinese officials at the forum would probably feel "some embarrassment." Mr. Kessler said Western analysts agreed that China's new satellite fragments would speed the chain reaction's onset. "If the Chinese didn't do the test, it would still happen," he said. "It just wouldn't happen as quickly." Last week in Beijing, a foreign ministry spokeswoman failed to respond directly to a debris question. Asked if the satellite's remains would threaten other spacecraft, she asserted that China's policy was to keep space free of weapons. "We are ready to strengthen international cooperation in this regard," the spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, told reporters. Cascade warnings began as early as 1978. Mr. Kessler and his NASA colleague, Burton G. Cour-Palais, wrote in The Journal of Geophysical Research that speeding junk that formed more junk would produce "an exponential increase in the number of objects with time, creating a belt of debris around the Earth." During the cold war, Moscow and Washington generally ignored the danger and, from 1968 to 1986, conducted more than 20 tests of antisatellite arms that created clouds of jagged scraps. Often, they did so at low altitudes from which the resulting debris soon plunged earthward. Still, the number of objects grew as more nations launched rockets and satellites into orbit. In 1995, as the count passed 8,000, the National Academy of Sciences warned in a thick report that some crowded orbits appeared to have already reached the "critical density" needed to sustain a chain reaction. A year later, apprehension rose as the fuel tank of an abandoned American rocket engine exploded, breaking the craft into 713 detectable fragments - until now, the record. Amid such developments, space experts identified the first collisions that threatened to start a chain reaction, putting analysts increasingly on edge. On Jan. 17, 2005, for instance, a piece of speeding debris from an exploded Chinese rocket collided with a derelict American rocket body that had been shot into space 31 years earlier. Warily, investigators searched though orbital neighborhoods but found to their relief that the crackup had produced only four pieces of detectable debris. A year later, Mr. Johnson, the chief scientist for NASA's orbital debris program, and his colleague J. -C. Liou, published an article in the journal Science that detailed the growing threat. They said orbits were now so cluttered that the chain reaction was sure to start even if spacefaring nations refrained from launching any more spacecraft. "The environment is unstable," they wrote, "and collisions will become the most dominant debris-generating mechanism." It was in this atmosphere of rising tension that China last month fired a rocket into space that shattered an old weather satellite - its first successful test of an antisatellite weapon. David C. Wright, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a private group in Cambridge, Mass., calculated that the old satellite had broken into 1,000 fragments four inches wide or larger, and millions of smaller ones. Federal sky-watchers who catalogue objects in the Earth orbit work slowly and deliberately. As of yesterday, they publicly listed 647 detectable pieces of the satellite but were said to be tracking hundreds more. The breakup was dangerous because the satellite's orbit was relatively high, some 530 miles up. That means the debris will remain in space for tens, thousands or even millions of years. Mr. Kessler, the former NASA official, now a private consultant in Asheville, N.C., said China might have chosen a relatively high target to avoid directly threatening the International Space Station and its astronaut crew, which orbit at a height of about 220 miles. "Maybe the choice was to endanger the station in the short term or to cause a long-term problem," he said. "Maybe that forced them to raise the orbit." Even so, the paths of the speeding Chinese debris, following the laws of physics and of celestial mechanics, expanded in many directions, including upward and downward. As of last week, outliers from the central cloud stretched from roughly 100 miles to more than 2,000 miles above the Earth. A solution to the cascade threat exists but is costly. In his Science paper and in recent interviews, Mr. Johnson of NASA argued that the only sure answer was environmental remediation, including the removal of existing large objects from orbit. Robots might install rocket engines to send dead spacecraft careering back into the atmosphere, or ground-based lasers might be used to zap debris. The bad news, Mr. Johnson said in his paper, is that "for the near term, no single remediation technique appears to be both technically feasible and economically viable." If nothing is done, a kind of orbital crisis might ensue that is known as the Kessler Syndrome, after Mr. Kessler. A staple of science fiction, it holds that the space around Earth becomes so riddled with junk that launchings are almost impossible. Vehicles that entered space would quickly be destroyed. In an interview, Mr. Kessler called the worst-case scenario an exaggeration. "It's been overdone," he said of the syndrome. Still, he warned of an economic barrier to space exploration that could arise. To fight debris, he said, designers will have to give spacecraft more and more shielding, struggling to protect the craft from destruction and making them heavier and more costly in the process. At some point, he said, perhaps centuries from now, the costs will outweigh the benefits. "It gets more and more expensive," he said. "Sooner or later it gets too expensive to do business in space." When insane bullies like George Bush get into office, and saber rattle because they think they have military superiority because of space technology, such as GPS oriented weapons, and battle field control, you can bet that it plants the seed for some nation to explode an atomic or fragment weapon in space to level the playing field. I dare say that some nation, perhaps Russia, China, or Iran (Or even France, Germany, Argentina, etc.) will decide to level the playing field in the next twenty years, and render the use of space for military and other purposes, useless. As can be seen from history, after Rome imposed on other peoples for a long time, and were discovered to be a paper tiger, the other nations started to detach from Rome, build defenses, and rip up the Roman roads and forts. Bush has set the same forces in motion. No nation will allow a bully nation to dominate the world with space military technology, when it can be easily eliminated. If space is neutralized, can you imagine an insane leader like Bush starting a land war against Russia, China, Iran, etc??? The entire world respected and trusted America, and looked to America for leadership in space, communications, business, standards, diplomacy, etc. and Bush ****ed it all away and set the stage for the second Dark Age. Bull****. Bush has nothing to do with America's unpopularity. It's been coming on for decades. The U.S. has been the shining example of what a country is capable of doing to make life better. When others have tried emulating such examples they often hit walls of politics, envy and outright resentment. Since they are not capable of success in similar areas to the same degree, for whatever reason, they begin to criticize (some justified) without looking at their own shortcomings and begin tearing down American sucesses as excessive, unfair, too dominant in world affairs, and selfish. This the same typical behavior that proclaimed to the common folk many decades ago that you have nothing to lose but your chains so they created a worker's paradise that accomplished nothing and cost freedom. You cannot put equality above freedom or you get neither. We now have a tacit effort to bring down the U.S. to a different level in order to achieve world equality and the U.S. itself is participating. Some points they have are probably legitimate ones to create a more level playing field for others but that has been tried before with mixed results. There is no reason to give up a good way of life in order to try and please the rest of the world. Steps can be taken to placate others without resorting to dismantling an entire structure that has proven efficient and benevolent if only politicians would do so instead of simply nodding and claiming that we have to please everybody. |
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"Orbiting Junk, Once a Nuisance, Is Now a Threat" - NY Times
"James" wrote:
Bull****. Bush has nothing to do with America's unpopularity. It's been coming on for decades. Overpopulation is the main factor in most of our problems, not this or that party or politician. As the numbers increase, everything will get worse, no matter who is in power, because technology can't catch up quick enough. .. .. -- |
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"Orbiting Junk, Once a Nuisance, Is Now a Threat" - NY Times
On Feb 12, 3:02 am, "James" wrote:
"Tom Potter" wrote in message .. . "(David P.)" wrote in message roups.com... http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/sc...ce/06orbi.html Orbiting Junk, Once a Nuisance, Is Now a Threat By WILLIAM J. BROAD Published: February 6, 2007 For decades, space experts have worried that a speeding bit of orbital debris might one day smash a large spacecraft into hundreds of pieces and start a chain reaction, a slow cascade of collisions that would expand for centuries, spreading chaos through the heavens. In the last decade or so, as scientists came to agree that the number of objects in orbit had surpassed a critical mass - or, in their terms, the critical spatial density, the point at which a chain reaction becomes inevitable - they grew more anxious. Early this year, after a half-century of growth, the federal list of detectable objects (four inches wide or larger) reached 10,000, including dead satellites, spent rocket stages, a camera, a hand tool and junkyards of whirling debris left over from chance explosions and destructive tests. Now, experts say, China's test on Jan. 11 of an antisatellite rocket that shattered an old satellite into hundreds of large fragments means the chain reaction will most likely start sooner. If their predictions are right, the cascade could put billions of dollars' worth of advanced satellites at risk and eventually threaten to limit humanity's reach for the stars. Federal and private experts say that early estimates of 800 pieces of detectable debris from the shattering of the satellite will grow to nearly 1,000 as observations continue by tracking radars and space cameras. At either number, it is the worst such episode in space history. Today, next year or next decade, some piece of whirling debris will start the cascade, experts say. "It's inevitable," said Nicholas L. Johnson, chief scientist for orbital debris at the National Aeronautics and Space Admin- istration. "A significant piece of debris will run into an old rocket body, and that will create more debris. It's a bad situation." Geoffrey E. Forden, an arms expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is analyzing the Chinese satellite debris, said China perhaps failed to realize the magnitude of the test's indirect hazards. Dr. Forden suggested that Chinese engineers might have understood the risks but failed to communicate them. In China, he said, "the decision process is still so opaque that maybe they didn't know who to talk to. Maybe you have a disconnect between the engineers and the people who think about policy." China, experts note, has 39 satellites of its own - many of them now facing a heightened risk of destruction. Politically, the situation is delicate. In recent years China has played a growing international role in fighting the proliferation of space junk. In 2002, for instance, it joined with other space- faring nations to suggest voluntary guidelines for debris control. In April, Beijing is to play host to the annual meeting of the advocacy group, known as the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee. Donald J. Kessler, a former head of the orbital debris program at NASA and a pioneer analyst of the space threat, said Chinese officials at the forum would probably feel "some embarrassment." Mr. Kessler said Western analysts agreed that China's new satellite fragments would speed the chain reaction's onset. "If the Chinese didn't do the test, it would still happen," he said. "It just wouldn't happen as quickly." Last week in Beijing, a foreign ministry spokeswoman failed to respond directly to a debris question. Asked if the satellite's remains would threaten other spacecraft, she asserted that China's policy was to keep space free of weapons. "We are ready to strengthen international cooperation in this regard," the spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, told reporters. Cascade warnings began as early as 1978. Mr. Kessler and his NASA colleague, Burton G. Cour-Palais, wrote in The Journal of Geophysical Research that speeding junk that formed more junk would produce "an exponential increase in the number of objects with time, creating a belt of debris around the Earth." During the cold war, Moscow and Washington generally ignored the danger and, from 1968 to 1986, conducted more than 20 tests of antisatellite arms that created clouds of jagged scraps. Often, they did so at low altitudes from which the resulting debris soon plunged earthward. Still, the number of objects grew as more nations launched rockets and satellites into orbit. In 1995, as the count passed 8,000, the National Academy of Sciences warned in a thick report that some crowded orbits appeared to have already reached the "critical density" needed to sustain a chain reaction. A year later, apprehension rose as the fuel tank of an abandoned American rocket engine exploded, breaking the craft into 713 detectable fragments - until now, the record. Amid such developments, space experts identified the first collisions that threatened to start a chain reaction, putting analysts increasingly on edge. On Jan. 17, 2005, for instance, a piece of speeding debris from an exploded Chinese rocket collided with a derelict American rocket body that had been shot into space 31 years earlier. Warily, investigators searched though orbital neighborhoods but found to their relief that the crackup had produced only four pieces of detectable debris. A year later, Mr. Johnson, the chief scientist for NASA's orbital debris program, and his colleague J. -C. Liou, published an article in the journal Science that detailed the growing threat. They said orbits were now so cluttered that the chain reaction was sure to start even if spacefaring nations refrained from launching any more spacecraft. "The environment is unstable," they wrote, "and collisions will become the most dominant debris-generating mechanism." It was in this atmosphere of rising tension that China last month fired a rocket into space that shattered an old weather satellite - its first successful test of an antisatellite weapon. David C. Wright, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a private group in Cambridge, Mass., calculated that the old satellite had broken into 1,000 fragments four inches wide or larger, and millions of smaller ones. Federal sky-watchers who catalogue objects in the Earth orbit work slowly and deliberately. As of yesterday, they publicly listed 647 detectable pieces of the satellite but were said to be tracking hundreds more. The breakup was dangerous because the satellite's orbit was relatively high, some 530 miles up. That means the debris will remain in space for tens, thousands or even millions of years. Mr. Kessler, the former NASA official, now a private consultant in Asheville, N.C., said China might have chosen a relatively high target to avoid directly threatening the International Space Station and its astronaut crew, which orbit at a height of about 220 miles. "Maybe the choice was to endanger the station in the short term or to cause a long-term problem," he said. "Maybe that forced them to raise the orbit." Even so, the paths of the speeding Chinese debris, following the laws of physics and of celestial mechanics, expanded in many directions, including upward and downward. As of last week, outliers from the central cloud stretched from roughly 100 miles to more than 2,000 miles above the Earth. A solution to the cascade threat exists but is costly. In his Science paper and in recent interviews, Mr. Johnson of NASA argued that the only sure answer was environmental remediation, including the removal of existing large objects from orbit. Robots might install rocket engines to send dead spacecraft careering back into the atmosphere, or ground-based lasers might be used to zap debris. The bad news, Mr. Johnson said in his paper, is that "for the near term, no single remediation technique appears to be both technically feasible and economically viable." If nothing is done, a kind of orbital crisis might ensue that is known as the Kessler Syndrome, after Mr. Kessler. A staple of science fiction, it holds that the space around Earth becomes so riddled with junk that launchings are almost impossible. Vehicles that entered space would quickly be destroyed. In an interview, Mr. Kessler called the worst-case scenario an exaggeration. "It's been overdone," he said of the syndrome. Still, he warned of an economic barrier to space exploration that could arise. To fight debris, he said, designers will have to give spacecraft more and more shielding, struggling to protect the craft from destruction and making them heavier and more costly in the process. At some point, he said, perhaps centuries from now, the costs will outweigh the benefits. "It gets more and more expensive," he said. "Sooner or later it gets too expensive to do business in space." When insane bullies like George Bush get into office, and saber rattle because they think they have military superiority because of space technology, such as GPS oriented weapons, and battle field control, you can bet that it plants the seed for some nation to explode an atomic or fragment weapon in space to level the playing field. I dare say that some nation, perhaps Russia, China, or Iran (Or even France, Germany, Argentina, etc.) will decide to level the playing field in the next twenty years, and render the use of space for military and other purposes, useless. As can be seen from history, after Rome imposed on other peoples for a long time, and were discovered to be a paper tiger, the other nations started to detach from Rome, build defenses, and rip up the Roman roads and forts. Bush has set the same forces in motion. No nation will allow a bully nation to dominate the world with space military technology, when it can be easily eliminated. If space is neutralized, can you imagine an insane leader like Bush starting a land war against Russia, China, Iran, etc??? The entire world respected and trusted America, and looked to America for leadership in space, communications, business, standards, diplomacy, etc. and Bush ****ed it all away and set the stage for the second Dark Age. Bull****. Bush has nothing to do with America's unpopularity. It's been coming on for decades. The U.S. has been the shining example of what a country is capable of doing to make life better. When others have tried emulating such examples they often hit walls of politics, envy and outright resentment. Since they are not capable of success in similar areas to the same degree, for whatever reason, they begin to criticize (some justified) without looking at their own shortcomings and begin tearing down American sucesses as excessive, unfair, too dominant in world affairs, and selfish. This the same typical behavior that proclaimed to the common folk many decades ago that you have nothing to lose but your chains so they created a worker's paradise that accomplished nothing and cost freedom. You cannot put equality above freedom or you get neither. We now have a tacit effort to bring down the U.S. to a different level in order to achieve world equality and the U.S. itself is participating. Some points they have are probably legitimate ones to create a more level playing field for others but that has been tried before with mixed results. There is no reason to give up a good way of life in order to try and please the rest of the world. Steps can be taken to placate others without resorting to dismantling an entire structure that has proven efficient and benevolent if only politicians would do so instead of simply nodding and claiming that we have to please everybody. It appears that "James" doesn't get out much. As can be see by the statements and actions of many people and peoples, Bush is the root cause of almost all of the hate for America and Americans. Note that because of Bush's saber rattling and irrational, greed-driven war on Iraq, nations are rearming, re-defensing, forming new military and trade partners, setting up independent GPS systems, moving money from dollars to Euro-dollars and RMB, etc. and as can be seen by the personal experienced of travelers, the people in the world who used to smile at Americas, now frown and smirk. For example, in a speech yesterday, Putin stated what millions of people have been saying for several years, and that is: Bush's foreign policy is inciting other countries to seek nuclear weapons *** to defend themselves*** from an "almost uncontained use of military force." He further stated: what all rational, intelligent, MORAL people UNDERSTAND, that "unilateral, illegitimate actions have not solved a single problem, they have become a hotbed of further conflicts" and that "one state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way." Face the facts, Bush the Elder and Bush the Insane have severely wounded America and made the world a less secure and happy place in their efforts to accumulate power and wealth for themselves, their families and their associates. Before the Bush gang got into power, almost all of the people and peoples of the world respected, trusted and even loved America and Americans, and looked to America for leadership, and in less than three years, with his bullying and irrational actions, Bush ****ed away all the trust and respect that it took the private sector decades to build up. Considering the far, far greater damage they have done to the world, hopefully the Bush Gang will be turned over to an International Court to be tried for their War Crimes as the Saddam gang was. -- Tom Potter *** Time Magazine Person of the Year 2006 *** http://home.earthlink.net/~tdp/ http://tdp1001.googlepages.com/home http://no-turtles.com http://www.frappr.com/tompotter http://photos.yahoo.com/tdp1001 http://spaces.msn.com/tdp1001 http://www.flickr.com/photos/tom-potter/ http://tom-potter.blogspot.com |
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"Orbiting Junk, Once a Nuisance, Is Now a Threat" - NY Times
On Feb 12, 1:03 am, "Kent Paul Dolan" wrote:
"Tom Potter" wrote: "(David P.)" wrote in message Now, experts say, China's test on Jan. 11 of an antisatellite rocket that shattered an old satellite into hundreds of large fragments means the chain reaction will most likely start sooner. Oh, joy. There's more totally off-topic shovelware from talk.bizarre's very own one man plague of kook, Pollutka. I suppose it's here to go along with Pollutka's totally off-topic anagram spam. That makes up the ham and eggs of a brain-burned drunk's habitual addicted behavior of making a nuisance of himself because that's all he has left to be, all meaning to his life otherwise lost down a bottle long, long ago. When insane bullies like George Bush get into office, and saber rattle because they think they have military superiority because of space technology, such as GPS oriented weapons, and battle field control, you can bet that it plants the seed for some nation to explode an atomic or fragment weapon in space to level the playing field. It's so *nice* that Usenet exists so that insane people like, which one is this, oh yes, "TomPotter", have a chance to blame the ill considered actions of one party on some utterly unrelated second party, as a way to express their undying hatred for that second party. Were it not for Usenet, the froth "Tom Potter" has building up inside would remain unvented, and an explosion would be the inevitable result, spraying ineptitude and stupidity everywhere. One need only look at that signature full of links that "Tom Potter" uses constantly, to recognize one sure sign of a full gonzo Usenet kook. Oh, well, nil novi sub soli. They'll be a new Usenet kook, or an old one revenant, here tomorrow too. HTH xanthian. I am pleased to see that "Kent Paul Dolan" continues to be a faithful reader of my posts, and that my posts continue to irritate him. As my Pappy used to say: "You get better information from the horse's mouth than you do from a horse's ass." If anyone thinks that I, rather than Bush is the issue, and they want to know about me and my thoughts, I suggest that they read my posts, web sites and blogs, On the other hand, if anyone prefers what comes out of the south end of a north bound horse, they should read the posts of "Kent Paul Dolan". I dare say that "Kent Paul Dolan" tells more about himself than he does about me, when he froths about my posts, and tries to make me the issue. As my Pappy also used to say: "A stuck pig squeals." No doubt I stick "Kent Paul Dolan" pretty hard with my incisive posts. -- Tom Potter *** Time Magazine Person of the Year 2006 *** http://home.earthlink.net/~tdp/ http://tdp1001.googlepages.com/home http://no-turtles.com http://www.frappr.com/tompotter http://photos.yahoo.com/tdp1001 http://spaces.msn.com/tdp1001 http://www.flickr.com/photos/tom-potter/ http://tom-potter.blogspot.com |
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"Orbiting Junk, Once a Nuisance, Is Now a Threat" - NY Times
(David P.) wrote:
"James" wrote: Bull****. Bush has nothing to do with America's unpopularity. It's been coming on for decades. Overpopulation is the main factor in most of our problems, not this or that party or politician. As the numbers increase, everything will get worse, no matter who is in power, because technology can't catch up quick enough. Strike ONE! The book "The Ugly American" was written in 1958, so the communist have been telling us we're unpopular for over half a century now, since the propaganda campaign started BEFORE the book. Strike TWO!! The hated white people of America are barely reproducing at a replacement rate; population growth in the US is entirely due to (legal and illegal) immigration and the high reproductive rates of the beloved protected minorities. Strike THREE!!! The argument that technology can't keep up with growth has been made for over a hundred years, and it has always been proven wrong. Yer OUT! |
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"Orbiting Junk, Once a Nuisance, Is Now a Threat" - NY Times
On Feb 11, 9:48 pm, (Eric Swanson) wrote:
In article , says... "(David P.)" wrote in message http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/sc...ce/06orbi.html Orbiting Junk, Once a Nuisance, Is Now a Threat By WILLIAM J. BROAD Published: February 6, 2007 For decades, space experts have worried that a speeding bit of orbital debris might one day smash a large spacecraft into hundreds of pieces and start a chain reaction, a slow cascade of collisions that would expand for centuries, spreading chaos through the heavens. In the last decade or so, as scientists came to agree that the number of objects in orbit had surpassed a critical mass - or, in their terms, the critical spatial density, the point at which a chain reaction becomes inevitable - they grew more anxious. [cut] "It gets more and more expensive," he said. "Sooner or later it gets too expensive to do business in space." When insane bullies like George Bush get into office, and saber rattle because they think they have military superiority because of space technology, such as GPS oriented weapons, and battle field control, you can bet that it plants the seed for some nation to explode an atomic or fragment weapon in space to level the playing field. For every offense, there is a defense, eventually. The Islamists have learned how to kill M1 tanks, according to recent reports. I dare say that some nation, perhaps Russia, China, or Iran (Or even France, Germany, Argentina, etc.) will decide to level the playing field in the next twenty years, and render the use of space for military and other purposes, useless. As can be seen from history, after Rome imposed on other peoples for a long time, and were discovered to be a paper tiger, the other nations started to detach from Rome, build defenses, and rip up the Roman roads and forts. Bush has set the same forces in motion. You mean V.P Cheney, don't you? No nation will allow a bully nation to dominate the world with space military technology, when it can be easily eliminated. If space is neutralized, can you imagine an insane leader like Bush starting a land war against Russia, China, Iran, etc??? Iran is only 75 million people, last I heard. Without space, we still own the skys, assuming the latest Russian anti-aircraft system just delivered could be compromised. That's probably part of the reason the Russians let them have it. The system would do them no good until it's tested in actual combat. Maybe the Russians see Bush as headed for a fight with the Iranians, thus, they get a real world test without the risk of being blown away themselves. Eric Swanson makes a good point when he points out that Iran has a population of only 75 million people. It is interesting to see that Iraq has a population of only 26 million, and America is having no problems in kicking their ass. Of course, if some nation takes out the GPS and spy satellite systems by exploding fragments in space, America would have a little trouble waging long distant land wars in North Korea, Iran, Russia, China, Argentina, etc. with limited supplies of energy and man power. The bottom line is the best policy is to respect the rights and cultures of ALL people, and build bridges rather than walls and military systems. -- Tom Potter *** Time Magazine Person of the Year 2006 *** http://home.earthlink.net/~tdp/ http://tdp1001.googlepages.com/home http://no-turtles.com http://www.frappr.com/tompotter http://photos.yahoo.com/tdp1001 http://spaces.msn.com/tdp1001 http://www.flickr.com/photos/tom-potter/ http://tom-potter.blogspot.com |
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