From: Gina Miller (echoz@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Apr 29 1999 - 14:08:53 MDT
"Billy Brown" WROTE:
>>I see two big issues that are being overlooked here:
>1) Space junk is only a medium-size problem. It certainly isn't
worthwhile to launch a major space program just to corral the stuff.
Schemes like robotic junk-retrieval tugs will end up costing tens of
millions of dollars per object retrieved, and there are tens of
thousands of relatively significant objects up there. That adds up
to an awful lot of zeros.
_______________________________________________________________
I agree and yet:
Space junk passes within 1 1/2 miles of ozone-mapping satellite ^By
MARCIA
DUNN ^AP Aerospace Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - An ozone-
measuring
satellite trailing space shuttle Discovery came frighteningly close
to a
500-pound piece of space junk that could have smashed it to pieces.
The
discarded rocket motor passed within 1 1/2 miles of the German-built
satellite, worth tens of millions of dollars. Discovery and its crew
of six
were 51 miles ahead of the satellite at the time Monday night and
were in
no danger, German mission manager Konrad Moritz said. If the rocket
motor
and the 7,700-pound satellite had collided - both are hurtling around
Earth
at 17,500 mph - it could have been disastrous. The U.S. Space Command,
which tracks junk in orbit, knew the object was out there and kept
NASA
informed. However, as the piece drew near, engineers variously
predicted it
would pass as close as a half-mile or 3 1/2 miles. Because of that
wide
margin of uncertainty, scientists nervously watched computer screens
when
the moment of closest approach came. ``We saw that we are still
transmitting, so our spacecraft is fine,'' Moritz said. ``This was a
moment
of excitement.'' Ground controllers were prepared to fire tiny
thrusters on
the satellite to slowly maneuver it out of harm's way. There is no
danger
of the motor coming close to the 184-mile-high satellite again, said
NASA
spokesman Kyle Herring. The astronauts plan to retrieve the satellite
on
Saturday, two days before their mission ends. The spent rocket motor
was
used in the unsuccessful launch of a communications satellite that was
carried up on a space shuttle in 1984. Coincidentally, the platform on
which the satellite's ozone-mapping telescopes are flying was on that
mission, too. ``Now we are meeting this guy again,'' Moritz said.
``Isn't
that the story?'' The rocket motor is among more than 8,500 orbiting
objects being tracked by the U.S. Space Command, most of them junk.
Discovery's crew spent Tuesday taking more pictures of the Hale-Bopp
comet
with an ultraviolet telescope mounted on a shuttle window, and
conducted
more tests with a laboratory platform designed to withstand
vibrations from
the spacecraft. ^AP-ES-08-12-97 1845EDT
Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
Nanotechnology Industries
Web Page
http://www.nanoindustries.com
E-mail
echoz@hotmail.com
Alternate E-mail
nanogirl@halcyon.com
"The science of nanotechnology, solutions for the future."
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