Litter problems.

[onearmedbandit]

It's been nearly 60yrs since the first satellite was launched, and in those 60yrs we've certainly left a lot of crap up there.

http://stuffin.space/?intldes=1983-020A

[Katman]

Only one collision by the looks of it though - so there's obviously plenty more room still available to dump our shit.

[madbikeboy]

Space junk is a massive problem. The issue is the speed of the space junk, a geosynchronous or geostationary satellite is rotating about 35,800 km above the planet and in order to stay stationary, it is moving at about 3 kilometers per second. Think of the arc it follows in order to keep up... At 180 mph you're doing a mile every twenty seconds. Imagine 3 kilometers per second. That's even faster than a lonely thought bouncing around in the vacuum in axckles stupid brain cavity.

Ever seen the movie Gravity? Not really so farfetched. Aside from someone wanting to save Sandra Bullock from certain death, I mean. If you've got a satellite that is old and out of fuel, and far off course - travelling at 3 kilometers per second, well, bad things could happen. Eventually, they get flung outwards into space. Or they fall into the earth's atmosphere and become carbon soot.

Satellites live in time slots above the earth, and there is a significant amount of correction required from earth, hence they run out fuel eventually.

I've steered a satellite. But in reality, think of it more like standing next to the helm while the rocket scientists in the room chuckle and make nerdy jokes about the last guy who took the tour and lost a billion dollar satellite by spilling coffee on the console.

Satellites are hugely expensive, launching them isn't a 100% likelihood of success. They're also really fascinating from an engineering perspective, something the size of a Volkswagen that has to work perfectly for 30 years.

Think of them as reflectors in the sky - helping bring SkyTV and internet to places that are hard to dig cables to. In Australia rural satellite is a very big deal, there are about 50,000 people in the boonies that use the Optus service for comms and even schooling their kids.

My two favourite pieces of kit are an automated satellite rig that sits on a vehicle and self aligns. And my fly away dish is also extremely awesome.

While I love fibre and cellular networks, the really fun stuff has rockets attached to get it into place

[Katman]

Ever seen the movie Gravity? Not really so farfetched. Aside from someone wanting to save Sandra Bullock from certain death, I mean.

I got to the point where I was willing her to die.

[bogan]

Needs a highlight spacepoop button...

Orbital mechanics are quite neat though, shit's going really fast, but so is every other thing, and in the same direction. One of the (many) reasons the movie gravity fucked it up was their complete lack of understanding of basic orbital mechanics.

[madbikeboy]

I got to the point where I was willing her to die.

You're a kinder person than me, I got to that point during that bus movie with Keanu Reeves in 1990 something.

[madbikeboy]

Needs a highlight spacepoop button...

Orbital mechanics are quite neat though, shit's going really fast, but so is every other thing, and in the same direction. One of the (many) reasons the movie gravity fucked it up was their complete lack of understanding of basic orbital mechanics.

LOL, quite. But the chances of two objects bumping isn't far fetched, and the objects are generally very fragile...

[TheDemonLord]

KSP has the answer - Send Jebediah up and he will have it sorted in no time.

[BLP]

I find it odd that there are so many satellites and 'junk' objects up there yet you don't see hundreds or thousands of satellites on a clear night.

I know many are geosynchronous but if you look at the digital representation in the link posted by the OP surely the sky should be visibly busy at night vs the dozen or so I've been able to see over a period of many hours on a clear night in the middle of know where with no light pollution.....

[EJK]

I read in An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth written by some Canadian guy that even tiny paint chips can create dings on ISS panels. Imagine a satellite sized of a school bus hit something at speed of 10 times faster than muzzle velocity of a bullet fired from Barrett 50!

Besides, that website is frikkin cool!!

[Mike.Gayner]

I find it odd that there are so many satellites and 'junk' objects up there yet you don't see hundreds or thousands of satellites on a clear night.

I know many are geosynchronous but if you look at the digital representation in the link posted by the OP surely the sky should be visibly busy at night vs the dozen or so I've been able to see over a period of many hours on a clear night in the middle of know where with no light pollution.....

You're talking about pretty bloody tiny objects a very very very long way away from earth. Consider that a plane flying overhead with navigation lights is roughly as bright as a star to our eyes....now imagine that plane being a couple of thousand times further away. And the only light source on a satellite is reflected light from the sun.

[Banditbandit]

You're talking about pretty bloody tiny objects a very very very long way away from earth. Consider that a plane flying overhead with navigation lights is roughly as bright as a star to our eyes....now imagine that plane being a couple of thousand times further away. And the only light source on a satellite is reflected light from the sun.

Add to that, that at night many satelittes are in earth's shadow - the sun is on the opposite side of our planet .

There is a short window when we are in darkness, but the suns's rays are hitting the satellites above us - then the window closes as the earth turns ...

[madbikeboy]

This thread is awesome. So far, no haters, and it's nerdy.

Mmm. Keep talking nerdy to me...

[awa355]

This thread is awesome. So far, no haters, and it's nerdy.

Mmm. Keep talking nerdy to me...

Akzle hasn't arrived yet.

[Zedder]

I find it odd that there are so many satellites and 'junk' objects up there yet you don't see hundreds or thousands of satellites on a clear night.

I know many are geosynchronous but if you look at the digital representation in the link posted by the OP surely the sky should be visibly busy at night vs the dozen or so I've been able to see over a period of many hours on a clear night in the middle of know where with no light pollution.....

Best times for viewing are near dawn and dusk with quite dark skies. Apparently, there's several hundred that are easily seen with the unaided eye, i.e, 9 metre and above in size, in the 160km-650km range above earth: http://www.space.com/6870-spot-satellites.html