Waste threatens us from space

The search for ways to "clean up" the universe of the lurking danger - dead satellites, rocket parts ... Around the Earth "fly" 22 000 pieces of waste are often larger than 10 inches.

Waste is a growing problem not only on Earth but in space, which has accumulated "forest" litter of dead satellites and rocket parts and debris caused by the collision of larger pieces. Approximately 22,000 pieces of debris, most of which are larger than 10 inches, moving at high speed, posing a danger for all with which they come into contact.

- The space station would be completely wiped out if they hit any of these pieces - said Donald Kessler, a former scientist, NASA, and one of the foremost international experts specifically for this question.

Kesler was first started thinking about space junk back as 1970. when dealing with parts asteorid and comets, and the risk that represented the spaceship "Apollo". While investigating the "crash" the asteroid, the scientist from North Carolina noted that, sooner or later, and satellites from Earth orbit to begin to collide and create a new waste, and NASA, realizing the danger, set up a special office to monitor motion of cosmic garbage.

Calculation Kessler 1978th , in one of the most important works on this subject, showed that only since 1966. to 1976. The amount of debris increased by 13 percent a year, to begin the new millennium has brought "waste zone" as a new threat to satellites. Accidents, however, that each space as a result of a collision is to create thousands of new pieces, which is a threat of future crash increases exponentially. As long as low Earth orbit becomes a "no-fly zone" for the spacecraft.

Today is Earth's orbit, notes British Bi-Bi-Si, turned into a sort of dump flying parts that move as "zombies" without an adequate way to be removed. Three years ago, the Pentagon has indeed formed a team that is considering various proposals for the removal of space junk. On the table were included spacecraft equipped with magnets to attract waste, "vacuum" in the form of umbrellas, as well as space "trucks" that could drag waste into Earth orbit, where it was burned.

The idea is missing, as is the case with money. Unresolved is the question of who is generally responsible for the removal of space garbage - a country that launches satellites, or applied for a cosmic "utility" services. Meanwhile, landfills are expanding and threatening.

Impacts:

When China's 2007th The test performed by the destruction of the old weather satellites, it has turned into wastes 150 000 particles the size of a centimeter. Two years later the Russian communications satellite "Kosmos" collided with another satellite, creating thousands of pieces of which one has caused shock in the general average Mređunarodnu space station.