Ned Potter is the science correspondent for ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson." He has reported on such topics as space exploration, the human genome and climate change.
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Space Shuttle Dodges a (Big) Bullet
September 03, 2009 4:36 PM
A piece of a European Ariane 5 rocket, launched three years ago and still circling the earth in a long elliptical orbit, is expected to pass within about two miles of the shuttle, currently docked with the International Space Station, at 11:06 a.m. EDT on Friday. NASA considered having the astronauts fire the shuttle's thrusters today to give them some extra breathing room, but that's a complicated maneuver, and Houston decided to skip it.
The the issue of space junk keeps growing. The U.S. is now tracking about 19,000 pieces of debris from spent rockets, dead satellites, etc., and says there millions too small for radar to pick up. Two satellites hit each other in February. Every time a shuttle even has to contemplate an evasive maneuver -- well, it's your tax dollars at work.
Gina Sunseri, reporting for us from Houston, has sent some notes:
"This piece of space junk is so big -- 19 square meters (about 200 square feet) and a thousand pounds. Mission Control has had plenty of time to figure out its path and understand where it will be orbiting. That's why they aren't going to move the space station and space shuttle -- they are relatively confident if something hits it, it will be something too small to be seen or tracked -- not this Ariane rocket part.
"On the mission's first space walk Tuesday, astronaut Danny Olivas took pictures of seven or eight new dings in the walls of the space station airlock -- just more proof of how junky it is up there on orbit."
"Meanwhile, NASA has fed video of Discovery's Friday night launch, taken by cameras mounted on the two white solid rocket boosters mounted on either side of the orange fuel tank. "It takes a few days for NASA to get this video back because ships have to retrieve the solid rocket boosters from the Atlantic Ocean and then tow them back to port. "The 'stars' you see when the boosters drop away from the shuttle are really spectacular -- pieces of still-smoldering fuel spewing from the engines."(NASA image: Astronaut Nicole Stott on a spacewalk Tuesday evening.)
September 3, 2009 in Science, Space | Permalink | Share | User Comments (5)
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We are building a cocoon. No exit.
Posted by: Ken | Sep 3, 2009 7:33:39 PM
The entire space program costs the taxpayer 50 cents per day. Your tax dollar at work...people spend 4 times that on their pets.
Posted by: PauJacob23 | Sep 3, 2009 11:07:44 PM
why can't they come up with a way to deflect the debris back into the atmosphere when it can disintegrate or fall into the ocean? I wouldn't want to be an astronaut and worry that some space marble will fly through my spaceship and kill everyone on board. This is very risky and borderline reckless.
Posted by: SL | Sep 4, 2009 3:57:36 AM
I'm sure there's some way for NASA to remedy this problem but it cost big $$$$ to do it. Something catastrophic will have to occur before anything will be done about this problem. The public doesn't care enough about this to allocate the money for NASA to fix it right now.
Posted by: Randy | Sep 4, 2009 11:04:40 AM
No wonder the aliens are keeping an eye on us. We've befouled our own nest, both on the ground and immediate space, and they don't want us to dump our trash in their neighborhood.
Posted by: andyr | Sep 6, 2009 10:55:17 AM
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