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What goes up must come down, and that includes all of the satellites, rocket stages, and junk that humans have launched into space. A group of scientists is sounding the alarm about how that growing cloud of debris orbiting Earth may cause us trouble in the future, and are championing a global approach to governing Earth's orbit.
In a letter published in Science today, the team of researchers says that there are 9,000 satellites currently in orbit, but that that number is projected to rise to 60,000 by 2030. All of these satellites are sources of orbital debris, whether the spacecraft themselves become junk when they are decommissioned or whether they become involved in an in-orbit crash resulting in a cascade of debris that will circle the planet.
Regardless, this group of researchers points to this boom in the space economy as a problem for the future of space safety and are calling for a legally-binding treaty to enforce the sustainability of Earth's orbit—much the way 190 nations just vowed to protect the global oceans."
[...] Until a global initiative to reign in the issue of space debris is achieved, some space agencies are taking steps to tackle the problem. Last year, NASA announced it would be funding three projects from various universities to better understand orbital debris and sustainability in space. Likewise, ESA has approved ClearSpace's giant claw that will grab onto junk in orbit and send it into Earth's atmosphere to burn up to take care of pre-existing space debris. Meanwhile, The Drag Augmentation Deorbiting System, a 38-square-foot (3.5-square-meter) sail to increase a satellite's surface drag, could be a way to retire yet-to-be-launched satellites at the end of their lives.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 16 2023, @04:19AM (2 children)
So the third world is indeed cutting down those forests. You just choose to blame someone else for it.
We'd cause it a lot faster, if we didn't feed them.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday March 16 2023, @01:01PM (1 child)
I pity anyone as evil and heartless as you.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 16 2023, @04:12PM
I don't because this is a purely imaginary and harmful narrative. You missed the point of my second sentence:
The developed world is the core of the greatest improvement ever in the human condition. It's because we don't just feed the developing world, we employ them, we trade with them, we have helped make them wealthier and healthier. The narrative of "exporting the pollution" and other developed world blame games helps to rationalize policies harmful to the majority of humanity.
I find it interesting how people are so eager to screw up the best thing ever on the basis of these defective and brutal narratives.