Our Stellar Tomb, Surrounded by space-junk? Options

A while ago, I saw a program on the tube sponsored by a donation-only system. The subject they were tackling was the corporatization of space, and how it is supposed to be made for business. Many things were brought up, such as space junk, satellites, 70's Star Wars program, etc.

Amongs many things though, was two disturbing points. The first detailed that if the Apollo rocket were to be crushed to 1g pieces, and left in space in orbit, the pieces would dissipate and entomb us with a literal minefield; Nothing can get out due to so much debris. The speaker equated it with trying to swim with pirhanas. Anything leaving wouldn't even last longer than 3 days in space. Sorta scary thinking that if humans wanted to go so far as escape for sake of fate, we couldn't because we even polluted our own heavens as well as the earth.

Further, the second point was even more disturbing. They mentioned the controversy of the Cassini probe when it was first launched, and how people around the world protested 72 (lbs?) of plutonium being launched into our atmosphere in space. That wasn't the worst of it, so it seemed. in 19(95?99?) The cassini probe slingshotted around the earth after a short slingshot with venus, and then went on towards jupiter. The thing about this, however, is that if the cassini probe were to enter a certain level of proximity of our atmosphere, it would disintegrate and disperse in the atmosphere. It was said that 1lb of plutonium could cause a lethal dose to the people of earth if disintegrated in our upper atmosphere....but 72?! I'm glad it missed!

Now, there is something else in the news. Some scientists say that there is a meteor that will pass in close proximity with the earth in 203X (twenty-thirtysomething or another), and that a probable plan is to smash it to bits and/or deflect it/push it away further with warheads. Well, thats fine and all, sounds logical, but now with this new input, I wonder...what happens if the debris from it rains on the earth after exposure to the irradiative effects of our repulsion tactics? That would spell widespread death on the entire earth, with einstein knows how much of a halflife until the earth can life can START to regenerate.

Do I have a basis for worrying?

Stuff like that scares people because it's so sensational. The chances for it happening are virtually zero, though. I'd worry more about the drunks behind the wheel at 3am, the neighbours w/a meth lab next door, illegal immigration, heart disease, well, you get the idea.

Most of the stuff that's a real threat and will kill us hardly gets any press at all because it's far too common. Hell, you're more likely to die by falling out of bed than getting struck by a meteor.

This post has been edited by Darkmage: Feb 14 2007, 10:38 PM

The Earth has some 26,000 man made satellites - keep in mind satellite is used as a collective term to mean the number of man made objects. The vast majority of the stuff up there is debris in orbital decay. Most will burn up in the atmosphere. There are some 8,600 objects that are actually in stable orbit and anly around 2500 of those are active or inactive satellites. Keep in mind there are several hundred thousands pieces of stuff in outter space. But most of it actually either to small or too far from Earth to be counted as a satellite. The size of the objects range from very small, like that of a lens from some piece of equipment to the size of discarded rockets. The danger this poses to Earth is actually more dangerous to astronaugts than people on Earth. Try to understand the Earth itself is hurtling through space faster than any man made object at an average rate of about 66,700 mph. You could imagine what would happen if the space junk collided with a shuttle, let alone an astronaught. On the other hand, since the majority of the space junk up there is from the Russians, I wonder how much, if any, radioactive matterials are actually up there. Its said there is some 2200 tons of space junk in Earth's orbit - why couldn't a pound or more of that be radioactive?
http://ask.yahoo.com/20010116.html

Apophis on the other hand is a whole nother story. In my opinon we should gather all that space junk and chuck it at apophis and hope it'll affect the meteor's ecsentricity enough to keep it out of harms way. Really the scare of this meteor is mostly hype. It is a threat, but probably not such a sensational one as some would lead us to beleive. Apophis is some where in the peak range of 1/2 mi in diameter (its potatoe shaped so this is its max size). While that is a size that scientist believe could be a threat to life on Earth bottom line is humanity has never been around, or at least kept records long enough, to tell us exactly what would happen if such a large meteor struck the Earth. At its worse it'll cause a global catastrophe. A lesser senario is it could mess with our already screwed up weather and drop the average temp by a degree or so. A more "rational" estimate is somewhere between those extremes. Another thing to consider is that Apophis, if scientist are right, is not actually on a collision course with us. Its going to be a very near miss with a very small probability of hitting a "key hole" or spot in space where the Earth's gravity would pull it out of its orbit around the sun and put in a decaying orbit around the Earth. So in 2029 if this thing does hit this spot, again we're talking very low odds, then is 6-7 years it will strike the Earth. But the exact damage is unknowable. i'd be more afraid of the object trained on us that we haven't seen yet.
http://echo.jpl.nasa.gov/~ostro/mn4/

Really the universe has no shortage of ways to kill us off. On a galactic scale the solar system is like a ship bobbing up and down in an ocean rotating around the galactic core. At the high and low peaks of this revolution our solar system is further out from our galaxy's magnetic sphere and thus exposed to more gama rays from inter-galactic space. Scientist have discovered that some black holes are not stationairy, in respect to other stellar objects, and actually "wander". If one of these were to come with a light year or less of the sun it would be the end of all our existance. Additionally dying stars and super nova have can generate gamma ray bursts. Given the amount of time it takes for light to travel there'd be no way to tell if a gamma ray burst was approaching us - there'd be nothing we could do anyways. Within our own solar system we have the sun emitting solar flares, meteors and comets to worry about. Here on Earth we have super volcanos, global warming, nuclear war (which I think is far more likely than anything else), biological warfare, and pandemic diseases. An AI with access to all the wireless technology on the Earth might kill us off. And hey there just might be some other being out there in the vastness of all reality that one day just might decide to knock us off too.

Now, I'm going to practice some math for my astronomy class, consider that in order to reach the nearest star in 85 years we'd have to travel about 34.7 million miles an hour. Given even 200 years a space ship would have to travel nearly 15 million mph. The fastest space craft we currently have travels about 31,000 mph - about a 95,000 year journey. So if you're thinking colonizing space is a possibility think again. At least not within the next few decades - or centuries. To put things into perspective if the sun were the size of a soft ball and placed on shore in San Fransico the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, would be in New Jersey. Thats just to the nearest star. The nearest Earth like planet could be exponetially further.

The only way around space and time is through some kind of worm hole that negates both. Now the energy it would take to simply make one might be just as stupendous as interstellar flight. I wouldn't bet that worm holes occur naturally in our solar system either. And even if they did they might be more hazzardous than beneficial. Perhaps we'd colonize other rocks in our solar system. Well the line up of potential homes away from Earth are not very pleasant.

So, for the time being, yes Earth is our mortal cosmic tomb.

This post has been edited by Acid09: Feb 16 2007, 03:16 PM

that was pretty much answered in the other answers, especialy when you consider small pieces have less mass and decelrate faster and even the iss space station has to be raised every now and then to help it maintain orbit because of the atomic oxygen and tides and things that make it slow down

which starts the next million questions...

why the hell are we here and if it were the case of apophis going through the keyhole, wouldn't something 'out there' stop it from happening, or is a planned act and we are screwed (if we were without the use of magic, that is)- i hit this concept before and did an article on it called 'did the dinasaurs look up?'

are we a virus on the earth, or more like a genetically-engineered bactieria cultiure in a 3d-petrie dish? i still say the latter, since we are obviously made (appendix and tailbone) as evolution would have dropped the useless bits, especially if they caused illness and immobility, as these would have died off

are we doomed? seems to me that we'd have been taken out long ago if we were, given the modern bombardment of other planets with larger objects (moons of mars, comets with jupiter), and the raining of cosmic debris on our own planet (small meteorites landing here and there)

were the mass extinctions of the past, the cleaning of the petrie dish before the next experiment? maybe we should we rename apophis to thermoclave?

are there some ancient ones looking out for us , and are we being led to extinction deliberately by a jealous elder race? i say yes, to both (it is the only explaination that i have seen so far that fits all the facts), but which of them are the ancient ones and which are the elder race?

why are we forced away from the 'greater knowledge' (spirituality and magic for want of better terms), into technology (works of the hands instead of the mind), and is it designed to cut us of from the greater knowledge? or did we do that to ourselves by removing the right brain's action from our definition of science?

is the return of horus/destruction of midgard set in stone, or will shiva intervene? because his story sure sounds like the stopping of the destruction of the apocalypse that the first two describe - a third choice of future path? or is it an old story referencing an even older apocalypse?

e.

why the hell are we here and if it were the case of apophis going through the keyhole, wouldn't something 'out there' stop it from happening, or is a planned act and we are screwed (if we were without the use of magic, that is)- i hit this concept before and did an article on it called 'did the dinasaurs look up?'

I think the meteor scientist *believe* (its only the most widely accepted theory) killed off the dinasaurs was much larger than Apophis. But keep in mind the odds of Apophis hitting the Earth is about as high as yellow stone erupting. And the amount of damage a super volcano could do could be worse than Apophis. Apophis is a meteor made up mostly from iron, if I'm not mistaking, and so our atmosphere will do little to stop it. The reason this type of meteor is so deadly is that once it strikes the Earth, even the ocean, it will cause a massive erruption of matterials from the Earth's surface into space. This is the stuff that would block out the sun and damage our atmosphere and rain back down on Earth to cause fire storms.

The sad thing is that Apophis can be stopped. We do have the technology to at least create the technology to prevent it from hitting the Earth. But so far I have only heard of theories, not actual plans.

But I'd still be more worried about global warming in the next 50 years. Some are predicting that as the polar caps melt ocean level can rise as much as 30 feet. This would wreek havoc on costal cities, where about 60% of all humans live, and ruin our weather patterns. It wouldn't likely kills us off though. And thats just it - The odds that some cataclysm would kill off humanity are extrememly low.

are we a virus on the earth, or more like a genetically-engineered bactieria cultiure in a 3d-petrie dish? i still say the latter, since we are obviously made (appendix and tailbone) as evolution would have dropped the useless bits, especially if they caused illness and immobility, as these would have died off

Perhaps the purpose of our existance is in the eye of the beholder. Since there is no evidence that proves one theory right I think the most logical answer is if purpose can equal function then life's purpose is to abide by its nature and live and evolve. Being apart of life on Earth the purpose of our existance would also be to live and evolve and abide by our nature. As a part of some grand design? life seems so intricate, so mathmatical and planned to have just been a random occurance. So maybe there is some "higher", divine purpose for life. Yet until some one or the maker itself comes down and proves it we can't know. Nor assume that we are some how protected.

are we doomed? seems to me that we'd have been taken out long ago if we were, given the modern bombardment of other planets with larger objects (moons of mars, comets with jupiter), and the raining of cosmic debris on our own planet (small meteorites landing here and there)

Doomed is rather pessimistic in my book. All things end. Our sun or galaxy eventually the universe itself will fly apart into the vast void of space. 300 million years from now mount everest will have been absorbed back into the Earth. We wouldn't even recognize our world from space. Thus humans are not destined to exist for infinity. Eventually disaster will strike and it might kill off the race but more likely it would end the existance we have created, not the species. Civilization as we know it will end, just as it did for so many others. But so long as people are around, a new civilization will be created.

were the mass extinctions of the past, the cleaning of the petrie dish before the next experiment? maybe we should we rename apophis to thermoclave?

Perhaps they simply follow the natural order of things. If we could make a model of the sun revolving around the galatic core it wouldn't be a straight even circle. It would look more like a wavey ellipse. ~~~~~~~~~~ only in an elipse. A recent theory is that at the lows and peaks of this revolution the sun enters a zone where it is more exposed to higher amounts of radiation. It is believed that these period correspond to mass exstinctions because even on we know of correlates to a time when the sun would have been at a peak or low point in its orbit.

are there some ancient ones looking out for us , and are we being led to extinction deliberately by a jealous elder race? i say yes, to both (it is the only explaination that i have seen so far that fits all the facts), but which of them are the ancient ones and which are the elder race?

I can't image such an advance race being jealous, at least not in the petty sense that we understand it. Even so it is possible, given the vastness of all existance, that some very old race or even being is keeping an eye on us or even planning to wipe us out. If they didn't want us to know they existed maybe they sent this Apophis, god of the underwold, to sort of kick over the ant hill so to speak. Even if Apophis struck the Earth I don't think it would kill off the entire human race. It is believed that as few as 100 humans could carry enough gene diversity to continue the human race.

why are we forced away from the 'greater knowledge' (spirituality and magic for want of better terms), into technology (works of the hands instead of the mind), and is it designed to cut us of from the greater knowledge? or did we do that to ourselves by removing the right brain's action from our definition of science?

If there is some greater force that is responsible for our existance the reason it seems omnipotent is for the same reason a parent must let their child go in order for it to learn to walk and grow. Perhaps the functions of the right brain that standard science supresses is too powerful for us to handle at this point. Yet I still maintain hope in that there is still science covering the right brain.

is the return of horus/destruction of midgard set in stone, or will shiva intervene? because his story sure sounds like the stopping of the destruction of the apocalypse that the first two describe - a third choice of future path? or is it an old story referencing an even older apocalypse?

History repeats itself in the sense the similar events occur again and again. Weather we compare Casaer to Napoleon or mass exstinctions to the various probable causes. Our continuum is on a cycle, what some describe it as teleological - think of a 3d spiral that represents our time line only where this ends we can only speculate. I think human has the potential to achieve some greater existance to sort of trancend - rapture - the entire human race. Even then the truth of the matter is that all things end. If that is true even in a state of "godhood" humanity would eventually end.

Why don't we just speed things up and call it "Wormwood?" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/uglyhammer.gif)

Just kidding.