Space Debris Affirmative

Inherency (2/8)

While the orbital equivalent of a used-car salesman selling satellite parts is some way off, the need to do more about space junk is immediate. "Our future ability to use space is directly jeopardised by space debris," says Szoka. Encouragingly, the European Space Agency has signed a contract with Spanish company Indra Espacio to develop a radar system to track space debris. In the US, Ball Aerospace and Technologies has collaborated with Boeing on the Space Based Space Surveillance satellite, a dedicated space-junk telescope awaiting launch. "It is very urgent that we begin to remove mass from orbit," says Klinkrad. Even as we talk, his team is beginning another tracking campaign. Something is stalking ESA's ERS-1 satellite, and they have to decide in the next day or two whether or not to use precious fuel to move the spacecraft. As Klinkrad says in a resigned voice, "This is becoming an everyday situation."

Tough neighborhood From a probability point of view, Shelton added, smaller satellites, more debris, more debris is going to run into more debris, creating more debris. It may be a pretty tough neighborhood," Shelton continued, in low-Earth orbit and geosynchronous Earth orbit "in the not too distant future." When asked if the U.S. Air Force plans on funding space debris mitigation capability, Shelton responded: "We haven’t found a way yet that is affordable and gives us any hope for mitigating space debris. The best we can do, we believe, is to minimize debris as we go forward with our operations. As we think about how we launch things, as we deploy satellites, minimizing debris is absolutely essential and we’re trying to convince other nations of that imperative as well." Shelton said that, unfortunately, with the duration of most things on orbit, "you get to live with the debris problem for many, many years and in some cases decades. So minimizing debris is important to us and it should be to other nations as well."

Inherency (3/8)

The status quo of just mitigation of the debris already in orbit is insufficient, we must actively engage in the removal of space debris to save the space around earth.

Ansdell in 10 (Master in international Science and Technology Policy at the University’s Elliott school of International Affairs with a focus on space policy, Princeton Journal of Public and International Affairs, Space Debris Removal, http://www.princeton.edu/jpia/past-issues-1/2010/Space-Debris-Removal.pdf, AX)

Efforts to reduce space debris have focused on mitigation rather than removal. Although mitigation is important, studies show it will be insufficient to stabilize the long-term space debris environment. In this century, increasing collisions between space objects will create debris faster than it is removed naturally by atmospheric drag (Liou and Johnson 2006). Yet, no active space debris removal systems currently exist and there have been no serious attempts to develop them in the past. The limited number of historical impact events fails to give the situation a sense of urgency outside the space debris community. Further, though mitigation techniques are relatively cheap and can be easily integrated into current space activities, active removal will require developing new and potentially expensive systems. The remainder of this paper addresses the current space debris debate and options to develop effective space debris removal systems.
Space debris is a human-made environmental problem which requires immediate regulations to solve.

David 11(Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is a winner of this year's National Space Club Press Award and a past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written for SPACE.com since 1999., Space.com, How to Clean Up Space Junk: DARPA's Orbital Catcher's Mitt, 5/13/11;http://www.space.com/11657-space-junk-orbital-debris-cleanup-darpa.html, rn)

In the big picture, Pulliam said that he considers orbital debris a human-made environmental problem Although space is not an ecosystem per se, the problem is dependent on the cumulative effects of human activity over and above the ability of the nature system to balance like any other environmental challenge," Pulliam said. Additionally, Pulliam advised that the constraints on finding an agreeable, cost-effective solution are remarkably similar to other current environmental issues. Specifically, the orbital debris problem can be characterized as a "tragedy of the commons." The problem can also be explained by what is called "common but differentiated responsibility," which is also seen in other worldwide environmental challenges such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and global warming, Pulliam pointed out. "It is likely new space-faring nations will make a similar argument if current mitigations efforts prove to be insufficient to forestall the deterioration of the low-Earth orbit environment and an international agreement on debris removal is required," Pulliam advised. There is a "therefore" to Pulliam's view: That is, if you are one that believes that debris has become a risk which will soon make operations difficult in low-Earth orbit, then a top-priority has to be in continued research into cost-effective methods to remove debris mass already in orbit. That's because this mass is what will cause the future growth in the debris population.  "There are many approaches that have been postulated for debris removal, but determining which are the most cost effective and demonstrating their utility is necessary to formulating a response to the overall problem with the lowest cost and risk," Pulliam said.

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