The Mother Of All Space Junk!!

Seems like we’re hearing a lot about space junk these days! It’s here, there and everywhere! In order to get a better grasp on just how much stuff is floating around in orbit, we all took a trip to The St. Louis Science Center to see “Space Junk,” at the OMNIMAX theater. What I learned was that yes, I was able to sit through an entire dizzying presentation, and yes, there is a ton of man made debris ready to fall out of the sky!!

But not to worry, it’s just a huge ring of orbital debris growing by leaps and bounds. It’s similar to all of the orphaned USB cables, cell chargers, and miscellaneous rubble in the kitchen junk drawer. Now add to that a monstrous ball of kid-cables that once came neatly packaged along with every handheld gaming device known to mankind, and what we have created is our very own orbit filled to the brim with space junk!

Photo credit to:  www.theweek.com

So what the heck are we doing about it?  Check out what the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has got planned for collecting that pesky space debris:

“The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency has a solution. It has teamed up with Nitto Seimo, a fishing net manufacturer, to design a giant, metallic net to be launched into space. The net would rotate around the planet, and collect the orbital trash. Once the net is full, gravity would pull it toward Earth — and it would burn up as it re-entered the atmosphere. Japan wants to launch the net within the next two years.”
http://theweek.com/article/index/211844/japans-plan-to-collect-space-garbage-with-a-giant-fishing-net

And that’s just one of the many ideas on the horizon on how to clean up outer space. More on that later!

Our busy lives here on Earth mimic a lot of the activities going on in space. For example, there are many communications satellites orbiting the earth, night and day providing us with radio, televsion and phone transmissions. I don’t really think about it, do you? Should we?

As we plunge further into space exploration, and you know it’s coming, we should probably think about finding a way to capture the debris that’s already there. After all, when we do buy our personal ticket to space travel, we want to experience the thrill of our lives!

Awesome, and gee thanks for all that you do! Photo credit:  www.freestockphotography.