Orbital litterbugs

Chris Eldridge, Harrisburg PA — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 03:19:36 GMT

As I said, debris itself can be used as a space weapon if some nations decides to launch 5,000-lbs of ball bearings. No 100-billion dollar SDI, just ball bearings.

The one item I scanned for but did not see is at what altitude this happened at. Normally a weather satellite is 21,000 miles above earth but as that movie showed, this one was lower.

Orbital litterbugs

Michael Hubbard, Santa Fe, Texas — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 21:46:52 GMT

Hmm, so is it arguable that a war in space near Earth would be relatively unlikely if the attacker also depended heavily on space, which China will inevitably begin to?

Orbital litterbugs

mike maddox — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 11:26:51 GMT

The answer seems to be to move into higher orbits. With technological advances in remote sensing and optics, that tactic wouldn't seem to be far off. i don't know the math but higher orbits results in almost exponential increases in area. Probably a 100,000 BBs would be meaningless as a war tactic. The war would quickly be over before even two of those BBs had a chance to cross paths with anything. So, will BFI be the first space garbagemen into orbit?

Orbital litterbugs

DM, Allentown, PA — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 16:20:47 GMT

Yep, 10000 ball bearings dispersed in retrograde orbit would end usage of space for just about everyone. Space is about cooperation, or its about nothing. Maybe this is message from China to us about SDI.

Orbital litterbugs

Frank Glover — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 19:33:51 GMT

Chris may be somewhat correct with regard to satellites, espically manned ones which, by their nature, are espically susectible to impact damage (and with a presumably-increasing spacefaring capability, China can only have an increasing stake in keeping the debris situation under control), but because they don't ascend very far into space, nor for very long, and have a small cross-section (as opposed to the large solar and antenna arrays [or pressurized living spaces] of larger sats), orbital debris issues will have small-to-zero effect on the usability of long-range ballistic missile warheads.

But no, it won't do the rest of your space-related assets any good...

Orbital litterbugs

Tom Meyer, Longmont, Colorado — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 14:12:15 GMT

Chris, Polar orbiting weather satellites and other satellites orbit at much lower altitudes than geostationary ones (around 400-500 miles vice 23,000 miles).

Orbital litterbugs

Mac — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 18:30:19 GMT

Won't surprise me if the China put other individual in space and gets hit by their own debri in orbit in the future.

Orbital litterbugs

Chris Eldridge — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 05:17:22 GMT

Thanks for all the feedback! I did eventually see the debris cloud was something like 200 to a 1000 miles up. Mike and Frank, I misspoke by implying the use of BBs as another form of SDI. That surely wouldn't work but a rouge nation with noting to lose might take down all low earth orbiting satellites - especially spy satellites which I also believe are in polar orbits like Envisat.

Orbital litterbugs

Doug Morton, Waterloo, ON — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 19:35:08 GMT

Your report and others refer to the incident as a satellite being "shot down"; the problem is that it wasn't. The Chinese official responsible for this should be ashamed of themselves.

Orbital litterbugs

Cary, Herndon, VA — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 15:13:24 GMT

China may have been sending a message to us about SDI but we can send one too. Boycott all their products and they'll never do this again.