Should we be concerned about SPACE DEBRIS?

[AviatorTom]

more than 30,000 pieces of space junk orbiting Earth

Parts of a battery pack discarded from the International Space Stations years ago came crashing down on a person's home in Florida. Here is the complete story...

Piece of 5,800lb battery pallet tossed from NASA's ISS crashes through Florida home - and nearly kills homeowner's son

What do you think?

Should we be concerned about space debris?

[MrOracle]

Yes, it's a concern, but we're already doing a lot better - and by "we", I mean SpaceX, which is now handling 80% of all space launches. Elon and his team worked very hard to help solve this problem, and other than the satellites themselves (which are required, if they're over a certain size, so leave enough fuel onboard so that they can be deorbited once their useful life is over), almost nothing is left in space. This is VERY UNLIKE all previous launch agencies, who for decades left tons of space junk routinely.

Even the battery pack in question was discarded such that it wouldn't stay in orbit for very long. Eventually everything in orbit will slow down enough that it will fall back to Earth, but lots of the existing stuff will take dozens or hundreds of years to do so because it's so high and moving so fast. The lower it is, the faster it loses speed and falls to Earth.

The other problem is that old satellites used to just be abandoned, along with lots of "junk" like fairing and staging sections. SpaceX recycles everything but the payload, including the fairings, which they designed a parachute recovery system for and which are reused many times. People used to laugh at Elon when he said he was going to make reusable rockets - and now he controls most of the global access into space.

SpaceX: 80%

China: 13%

Everyone else: 7%

https://www.youtube.com/embed/sf4qRY3h_eohttps://www.youtube.com/embed/GoBoXz6aqKEhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/49eIoaY8pVM

[NamerOfStars]

Yes- we're dangerously close to Kesslering the planet. I read an article a few years back suggesting we mount a laser cannon on the ISS to shoot bits of debris down. I don't know how practical that would be, but "astronaut and laser cannon operator" is one of the few jobs titles cooler than "astronaut", so I'm in favor.

[sage2021]

Since things are falling off Delta jets in the sky, I guess things (space junk) can come off and land anywhere, even America 🇺🇸.

[juliammm]

This would never be my top concern! There are so many other threats in this world...

[strateguy632]

concern is stupid when you are powerless.

will you worry every day it wil break your house?

[OlderAndWiser]

Yes, we particularly need to be concerned about the ring of debris around Uranus!

[FreyaRed]

Yeah, you have to turn shields on in lower earth orbit.

[exitseven]

Wait until everyone has an electric car. There will be old batteries all over the place. This is what we should be worried about

[purplepoppy]

Plus its a danger to further space travel. Not a good image of earth for aliens either.

[JacobJordan]

If we aren't careful we could lock ourselves out of our own space

[Surely]

We now live in a throw away world. We need to be concerned about whatever we discard. Some are just more dangerous than others.

[Anonymous]

Well, considering no one has actually died from space debris and considering lots of people are killed by lightning strikes every year, you should probably be way more concerned about getting killed by lightning.

[IslaTheWitch]

we definitely should...

[NathanDavis]

no... 30,000 piece is nothing yet