Aimee Copeland, a victim of flesh eating bacteria (necrotizing fasciitis) whose hands had to be a... (read more)
Like our oceans, closets, and arteries, so go our lower space orbits: clogged with junk. Decades of admittedly awesome space exploration (except for the animal testing), combined with a roguish lack of foresight has left us with a dangerous amount of space clutter. Tens of millions of pieces of debris are whizzing around the Earth at deadly speeds as you read this... right now!
It's not like we can ignore it. This condition is one that only makes itself worse as time passes. Do we really want to end up like the humans in Wall-E?
In this video, we explore what could be done to help, and what has been done lately to make the problem worse.
Host: Rheanna Sand
Photo Credits: Wikimedia/NASA
References:
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/05/ff_space_junk/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/science/space/12satellite.html
http://www.darpa.mil/news/2009/OrbitalDebris.pdf
http://www.cydeweys.com/blog/2007/01/18/china-creates-space-debris-intentionally/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e16U8UsT4I