No nasa space launches now- partisan fighting and controversies prevent all funding Handberg 7-25
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***Uniqueness***Tipping PointSpace debris risks reaching an all time high due to the increased solar activity in 2012- Only one piece of junk is necessary to start the snowball Wall 11 (Senior Editor of Space.com, PhD in evolutionary biology from University of Sydney, Science Writer for Idaho National Laboratory, Writer for SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) Mike Wall Space.com April 5, 2011 “Space Junk Threat Will Grow for Astronauts and Satelites” http://www.space.com/11305-space-junk-astronauts-bigger-threat.html Fast-moving chunks of space debris zipped uncomfortably close to the International Space Station twice in the past week — cosmic close calls that will likely become more common over the next several years, experts predict. For one thing, after 50 years of spaceflight there is just more junk up there than there used to be, sharing space with vehicles and their human crews. And this debris can snowball — as when satellites collide, spawning thousands of new pieces of orbiting junk. The sun is also entering an active period, which puffs up Earth's atmosphere and increases orbital drag — causing higher-altitude space debris to rain down on spacecraft below. Solar activity shouldn't hit its peak until 2012 or 2013, so orbiting astronauts may experience some more close shaves soon. "I think that over the next two or three years, this is going to happen more often," NASA's Gene Stansbery told SPACE.com. Stansbery is the program manager of NASA's Orbital Debris Office at Johnson Space Center in Houston Space debris now reaching a tipping point Blake 11 (Reporter for the Daily Telegraph, Young Journalist of the Year, Journalist of the Year) Heidi Blake The Daily Telegraph February 1, 2011 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/8295546/Space-so-full-of-junk-that-a-satellite-collision-could-destroy-communications-on-Earth.html The volume of abandoned rockets, shattered satellites and missile shrapnel in the Earth’s orbit is reaching a “tipping point” and is now threatening the $250 billion (£174bn) space services industry, scientists said. A single collision between two satellites or large pieces of “space junk” could send thousands of pieces of debris spinning into orbit, each capable of destroying further satellites. Global positioning systems, international phone connections, television signals and weather forecasts are among the services which are at risk of crashing to a halt. This “chain reaction” could leave some orbits so cluttered with debris that they become unusable for commercial or military satellites, the US Defense Department's interim Space Posture Review warned last year. There are also fears that large pieces of debris could threaten the lives of astronauts in space shuttles or at the International Space Station. The report, which was sent to Congress in March and not publicly released, said space is "increasingly congested and contested" and warned the situation is set to worsen. Bharath Gopalaswamy, an Indian rocket scientist researching space debris at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, estimates that there are now more than 370,000 pieces of junk compared with 1,100 satellites in low-Earth orbit (LEO), between 490 and 620 miles above the planet. The February 2009 crash between a defunct Russian Cosmos satellite and an Iridium Communications Inc. satellite left around 1,500 pieces of junk whizzing around the earth at 4.8 miles a second. A Chinese missile test destroyed a satellite in January 2007, leaving 150,000 pieces of debris in the atmosphere, according to Dr Gopalaswamy. The space junk, dubbed “an orbiting rubbish dump”, also comprises nuts, bolts, gloves and other debris from space missions. "This is almost the tipping point," Dr Gopalaswamy said. "No satellite can be reliably shielded against this kind of destructive force." |