Earth’s Other Landfill

Photo Source: acbo

In 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first man-made object to enter space, the world took notice.  Fear spread throughout the international community that the Soviet Union could weaponize space and so, the space race began. Fifty years later as technological advances and man’s thirst for discovery have increased, an unfortunate byproduct has developed – space junk.

Space junk is defined as any object or debris that was man-made, put into space and is no longer functional.  Most space debris includes shards of rockets, satellites that no longer function or pieces of an object that have broken off after a launch.  NASA has posted a model of space debris orbiting the Earth.  It can be seen here and looks like bees swarming a hive. 

Space junk poses a potential threat to space missions and equipment like the shuttles and communication satellites.  Although it’s hard to believe, many of these objects orbit the Earth at speeds more than 22,000 miles an hour.  At these speeds even a tiny speck of paint is capable of creating a hole a quarter-inch wide in the window of a space station.  The Joint Space Operations Center (JSPOC) is a department of the Air Force that tracks space debris.  Currently JSPOC tracks over 20,000 larger objects of the estimated 140,000 objects that are larger than 1 centimeter orbiting the Earth.

When space junk can no longer maintain its orbit speed, it’s called orbital decay.  Orbital decay can cause objects to fall back into Earth.  Our atmosphere will incinerate many of the objects re-entering Earth, but according to “The Universe” on the History Channel, in the last 40 years 17,000 pieces of space debris have survived re-entree. In 1997, a 580-lb stainless steel tank plowed into the ground in Georgetown, Texas.  A picture of the tank can be seen here.

While the exploration of Earth and space from Lower Earth Orbit will yield valuable new information about our planet, it can also reaffirm lessons we’ve already learned.  Discarded trash has consequences.  Just because an object is thrown away does not mean that it no longer poses a threat to its surrounding environment.