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Par Steven Levy
Sam asks, “Is space trash a legitimate problem that needs to be addressed in this decade?”
Sam, I hope you are not referring to space tourism companies’ policies for selecting their self-styled “astronauts.” Admittedly, those who casually shell out ludicrous sums to sample space may not be the cream of humanity, and Blue Origin is dangerously veering toward stunt casting. Ex-football players, Alan Shepard’s daughter, the oldest astronaut, the youngest astronaut … how long before we’re blasting off centenarians and infants? Plus, after William Shatner, what’s left for anyone to say? But I would never, never, never call these people trash.
And I suspect that’s not what you mean. You are talking about debris. Right? Yes, this is a problem! While space is infinitely vast, the band around Earth where one can reasonably orbit is tiny in comparison. And we’ve used it as a dump. NASA now tracks about 27,000 shards of litter circling Earth and admits there are countless other detritus too small to monitor yet dangerous enough to cause havoc if they hit something. When a piece of space trash hits a satellite at 15,700 miles an hour, it not only takes the orbiter out of commission but causes more space trash—in 2009 a defunct satellite collided with an Iridium unit and created 2,300 more pieces of trackable garbage, and a lot of other tiny projectiles capable of ruining a Space Station astronaut’s day. Meanwhile, we’re sending up more satellites with abandon. Elon Musk wants to launch at least 60 satellites for his Starlink internet service. Sooner or later someone is going to get walloped. I hope it’s not a space tourist—we need those executive/philanthropists, actors, and progeny of Project Mercury! And when is Elon going to space? Scared of a little debris, Mr. Musk?