The Space Junk Threat Complexity - Part 2

The Space Junk Threat Complexity - Part 2

http://www.spacemart.com/reports/The_Space_Junk_Threat_Complexity_Part_2_999.html

Currently, 44 radiation sources from Russia are parked in the "burial
orbit" of space. They are: two satellites with unseparated nuclear
power units (Cosmos-1818 and Cosmos-1867), fuel assemblies and 12
closed-down reactors with a liquid metal coolant, 15 nuclear-fuel
assemblies and 15 fuel-free units with a coolant in the secondary
cooling loop. They are to spend no less than 300 to 400 passive years
in the orbit. That is enough for uranium-235 fission products to
decay to safe levels.

The United States is another contributor to the high levels of
radiation in near-Earth space. In April 1964, its Transit-SB
navigation satellite with a radio isotope generator aboard failed to
enter orbit and broke into pieces. While burning up in the
atmosphere, it scattered about a kilogram of plutonium-238 over the
western part of the Indian Ocean north of Madagascar. The result has
been a 15-fold increase in background radiation around the world.

A few years later, the Nimbus-B weather satellite with a uranium-235
reactor crashed into the Indian Ocean. Today, there are seven
American radiation sources circling the Earth in orbits ranging from
about 497 to 683 miles, and two more in near-geostationary ones.

The lurking threat of both Russian and American nuclear satellites is
that, should they fall apart upon collision with space debris, vast
expanses of near-Earth space would be contaminated.

Additionally, if some of the fragments had a velocity after collision
and destruction that was below orbital speed, they would fall out of
orbit and pollute some parts of the Earth's surface. In the
worst-case scenario, the atmosphere could be heavily contaminated.

Now that we have ascertained the threat, it is necessary to think of
ways to confront it and, if that is impossible, to deal with its
effects.

For a start, it is important to cut the number of craft launched by
increasing their useful life and using multipurpose satellites. Once
they have served their purpose, they can be brought to the denser
layers of the atmosphere using their remaining fuel, where they will
burn up or enter less "populous" orbits. The second option is
preferable. The satellite cemetery is expected to lie 124-186 miles
above the area of geostationary orbits.

Directly cleaning up accumulated garbage from near-Earth space
appears problematic for the foreseeable future. One idea is to use
lasers. But complete evaporation of even a relatively small bit of
substance would require considerable energy. Besides, some of the
materials exposed to laser action will simply break up into smaller
pieces, increasing the total number of fragments.

Lastly, this method is dangerous because it releases enormous energy
into the environment. This energy might not only upset the
environment's heat balance but also alter its chemical composition.

Unfortunately, no effective practical techniques exist today to
protect against space pollution at altitudes where the cleaning-up
effect of atmospheric drag on a satellite is absent.

On the other hand, the piling up of man-made debris in space poses
the threat that once some critical level is achieved, an
avalanche-like buildup may begin as pieces of rubbish start
multiplying in mutual collisions.

After a time this may make working in space impossible.

(Yury Zaitsev is an expert with the Space Research Institute of the
Russian Academy of Sciences. This article is reprinted by permission
of the RIA Novosti news agency. The opinions expressed in this
article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of
RIA Novosti.)

See:
http://www.spacemart.com/reports/The_Space_Junk_Threat_Complexity_Part_2_999.html

On a sunny day (Fri, 15 Jun 2007 20:16:04 GMT) it happened Sam Wormley


Duh, the obvious solution is to design a nuculear space engine
and give these orbiting nuke reactors a push towards the sun, come back
for the next one.

Plenty of astronuts would like to even pay to do the job, radiation or not.

Most unfortunately design of advanced spacecraft stopped in the US when Von Braun
died.
US disgraced him, insulted him, renamed buildings that were named after him, and
lost the capability to land on the moon.

It will likely take an other German engineer....

Europe has space plans....
US will have top pay in Euro if they want a hotel room on the moon.

http://www.spacemart.com/reports/The_Space_Junk_Threat_Complexity_Part_2_999.html
[Jan]
[hanson]
Interesting, .... when did that denigration happen?
Who was the chief instigator(s) of that Anti-Von Braun action?
What buildings were these and what new names were they given?
hanson

On a sunny day (Fri, 15 Jun 2007 23:06:45 GMT) it happened "hanson"



Just did some googling, could not find it.
I remember it though, pissed me of at the time.
The main instigator was of course US politics, last thing little US
wants their own people to know is that it would not be in space without
a captured German professor :-)
The way I see the psychology of it is like this:
Genius (he was in his field, and a great organiser)... if you start
criticising, and not try to grasp what he really did, and why (means study
and experiment), it is very much like Microsoft against Unix.....
'Those who criticise Unix are bound to reinvent it'.
In criticising Von Braun's legacy, his ideas. + SOUND ideas + about space
exploration,
(he had after all a manned mars trip worked out too) US pretended to 'know
better'.
Probably some politically nominated 'yes sayers' were put in charge, and Oh
Genius THOSE came up
with a much "better" and economical way to go to 'space' (if you can call LEO
space that is)
a re-usable shuttle!!!!!
SOOOOOOOOOO clever...
And we all know how many trips that was supposed to make to 'space', and at what
price per trip.
Old engineers with hands on experience with Saturn who worked at NASA were
fired (I still remember that), and the space shuttle disaster (both financially
and technically)
began..
And is still with us today.
UNLESS somebody goes over the old calculations, and picks up again on the old
engineering, there will be no manned mission to other planets by the US.
It is a law of nature... the way to the planets is VIA Von Brauns ideas...

But no, political green [turds ... you know], are against nuculear power, against
nuculear spaceships, against people, FOR plants and rare birds....
You could in a way say shuttle was a design by popular vote, by the layman.
It needs to be fixed even up there, using thread and needle ;-) what a joke.
NASA can only land with parachutes...
Lets see what the Chinese do, and the Europeans....
As to Galileo.. (to other poster) at least Europe is not so nuts to just
push forward no matter what cost, it is stopped now to review it.
Maybe better spend the money on a mars base, so we can tax Americans when they
parachute down their in their airbags... These will need fixing, at a price you
know.
Sell them back their own coke at 1000$ a bottle.

On Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:21:27 GMT, Jan Panteltje



.....and they are going to get started on them - as soon as
Galileo is up and running!