The amount of space debris racing around our planet from manmade mistakes is getting to be a little much and it is starting to become more and more serious. On the last Chinese orbit of a manned space satellite it is estimated that no less than 20 pieces broke lose, which is nominal in the scope of things. But consider 20 fragments of alloy spinning around the planet at 17,500 miles per hour or about 10 times the speed of a high velocity bullet. You see the problem?

Did you know that we now have systems to track such space debris because if it hits anything at those speeds it can be very serious? For instance it could go through the hull of a space ship and cause depressurization or damage systems. Or it might take out a 100 million dollar communications satellite, which may come apart causing many more pieces to be broken lose. You see the problem now?

I propose we make a space vacuum system to orbit the Earth and begin collecting space debris from failed satellites, old space junk or fragments of meteorites broken apart as they bounced off the atmosphere when deflected. If we fail to keep our near Earth Space clean of debris we will continue to pay later.

Just like we are now with pollution issues contaminating our water supplies in some regions and urban run off causing algae blooms. Hopefully we will learn our lessons and clean up the debris in space now, before it gets to be much more of a problem. Think on this in 2006.

Lance  Winslow

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