Space Junk? Yeah, it’s a thing.

The first launch of metal into space was the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1. Its transmissions could be picked up by amateur radio operators around the world. This tiny artificial satellite orbited Earth for 3 months, finally burning up in Earth’s atmosphere on January 4,1958. 1 Not every piece of metal reenters Earth’s orbit and burns up. Sometimes, it just stays in space.

Right now, there are more than 1100 satellites flying over our heads. Some are 4-inch cubes weighing about 2 lbs., while others are the size of a school bus, weighing 6 tons. 2 Half of those are in low-earth orbit, like the Hubble telescope, observation satellites and International Space Station, which is about 260 miles above us.3 Global positioning systems are in Medium-Earth orbit (which we shall now call Middle Earth orbit - and of course you already know why this is my favorite term), or over 12,000 miles straight up.

Low-Earth, or Near-Earth orbit has many more pieces floating than functional satellites. Space debris includes LEO (low-earth orbit) dead satellites, which have a whopping life expectancy of 5 years, GEO (in a higher, geostationary orbit) satellites (life expectancy of 8 years), leaked coolant, paint chips, bolts, upper stages of launch vehicles and pieces from space collisions. In fact, most of the debris comes from accidents.That’s a hundred thousand pieces of anything, whipping around the earth at the astonishing speed of 17,500 miles per hour. That’s enough to slash through your shuttle bus to the moon.

So why can’t we just send someone up with a vacuum and trash can? The cost is exorbitant. Who’s monitoring all this debris? NASA (National Aeronautics Space Administration) has an Orbital Debris Program Office which logs the movement of every piece of debris bigger than a softball. ESA, the European Space Agency, looks to the US Space Surveillance Network, who catalogs items (currently numbering about 15,000, not including 1000 satellites), but ESA Member States contribute information from research radars and telescopes. There is also input from the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

And now the latest in terror: China’s unmanned 18,000 lb+ Tioangong Space Lab is scheduled to return to Earth some time between October, 2017 and April, 2018. They don’t know when. They don’t know where. They think it is “highly unlikely” that the falling debris will cause persons or property to be damaged. And caution: There’s a highly toxic substance on board that will most likely survive re-entry: hydrazine.4 So you know what that means, right? DON’T TOUCH IT. And you know what else that means? It most likely will fall IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD. In my backyard. On something valuable, like our grill or our picnic table. (sigh) So . . . there’s that.

So, my creative scientists, let’s think of a solution to clean up our space (nod to Tim Gunn). The backyard grill you save could be mine.

Photos that may interest you: Screenshot of space junk:
https://www.popsci.com/now-you-can-see-all-space-junk-floating-around-earth-real-time

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2523271/Image-reveals-disused-rockets-abandoned-satellites-orbit-Earth.html

This is an awesome podcast with Fraser Cain and Pamela Gray that discusses Space Junk.
http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/e/7/4/e74c4f7c1c62a346/AstroCast-080331.mp3?c_id=1379386&expiration=1508417010&hwt=5a40ce285acc2352c6a90c61580ff5e1


1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_1

2 https://www.universetoday.com/42198/how-many-satellites-in-space/

3 http://talkingpointsmemo.com/idealab/satellites-earth-orbit

4 https://www.space.com/37691-china-tiangong-1-space-lab-uncontrolled-re-entry.html